Appendix:Glossary

A glossary of terms (primarily grammatical) used in the body of this dictionary.See alsoWiktionary:Glossary,which contains terms used elsewhere in the Wiktionary community,Appendix:Glossary of rhetoric,which explains commonly usedrhetoricalterms andCategory:Language-specific Wiktionary glossary pagesfor language-specific terminology.

Contents:	0–9ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

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1st person

Seefirst person.

2nd person

Seesecond person.

3rd person

Seethird person.

Symbols

*

Anasteriskappearing before a term (an affix, a root, a word, etc.), indicates the term is not attested but reconstructed; for example,*werdʰh₁omis the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European word forword.

[ ]

Bracketssurrounding a quotation indicate that the quotation either contains a mere mention of a term (for example, "some people find the wordmanoeuvrehard to spell ") rather than an actual use of it (for example," we need tomanoeuvrecarefully to avoid causing upset "), or does not provide an actual instance of a term but provides information about a related term.

†

In a Chinese entry, adaggerindicates that a sense is obsolete in Modern Standard Chinese, though it may be preserved in fossilized compounds and expressions or other varieties of Chinese.

A

a.

"Ante"(Latin for" before "). Hence, a quotation from"a.1924 "is a quotation from no later than the year 1923.

abbreviation

A shortened form of a word or phrase, such as aninitialism,acronym,orclipping.

ablative case

Acasethat indicates separation, or moving away from something. It is used alone or with certainprepositions.For example, if English had a fullyproductivecase system that included the ablative case, then in the phrasecame from the city,either "the city" or "from the city" would likely be in the ablative. In some languages, such as Latin, this case has acquired many other uses and does not strictly indicate separation anymore.

ablaut

InProto-Indo-European,or any of its descendants (theIndo-Europeanlanguages), a system ofvowelalternation in which the vowels that are used in various parts of the word can change depending on meaning. The system is used for purposes ofinflectionand word derivation. In the Germanic languages, it forms the basis of thestrong verbs.A specific form of ablaut is referred to as agrade;see for instancezero-grade.Compare alsoumlaut.

absolutive case

Acaseused to indicate thepatientorexperiencerof averb's action.

abstract noun

Anounthat denotes an idea, emotion, feeling, quality or other abstract or intangible concept, as opposed to a concrete item, or a physical object.Antonymofconcrete noun.

abstract verb

In theSlavic languages,a verb of motion whose motion is multidirectional (as opposed to unidirectional) or indirect, or whose action is repeated or in a series (iterative). Also called anindeterminate verb.The opposite type of verb, which expresses a single, completed action, is termed aconcrete verb(or adeterminate verb). Motion verbs in theSlavic languagescome in abstract/concrete lexical pairs, e.g.Russianходи́ть(xodítʹ,“togo(abstract)”)vs.идти́(idtí,“togo(concrete)”),бе́гать(bégatʹ,“to run (abstract)”)vs.бежа́ть(bežátʹ,“to run (concrete)”),носи́ть(nosítʹ,“to carry (abstract)”)vs.нести́(nestí,“to carry (concrete)”).English does not make this distinction. For example, "I went to the post office" could be abstract (if I went there and came back, i.e. multidirectional) or concrete (if I am there now, i.e. unidirectional), and different Russian verbs would be used to translate "went" in these two circumstances. In Polish coming back does not cause abstract verbs to be used, only doing something many times (Chodzę do biura.'I go to the office (every day).' vs.Idę do biura'I am going to the office (now).') or moving without target (Chodzę po pokoju'I am walking around the room.' vs.Idę przez pokój.'I am walking across the room.') does. Abstract verbs are alwaysimperfectiveinaspect,even with prefixes that are normally associated with theperfective aspect(e.g. Polishprzybiegać).

accusative case,acc.

Acasethat is usually used as thedirect objectof averb.For example, if English had a fullyproductivecase system, thenballin "The man threw the ball" would most likely be in the accusative.

acronym

Anabbreviationthat is pronounced as the “word” it would spell, such asNATO.

active voice

Thevoiceverb form in which the grammaticalsubjectis the person or thing doing the action (cf.passive voice), e.g.The boy kicked the ball.(See alsovoice)

acute accent

Adiacriticmark ( ´ ) used that can be placed above a number of letters in many languages of the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic writing systems.

AD

Anno Domini. Year-numbering system equivalent toCE.

adaptedborrowing

Aloanwordformedwith the addition of anaffixto conform the term to the normalmorphologyof thelanguage,e.g. Polishnormatywny,borrowed from Frenchnormatifand adapted with Polish-ny.

adj

Seeadjective.

adjective

A word likebigorchildishthat usually serves to modify anoun.

adverb

A word likevery,wickedlyoroftenthat usually serves to modify anadjective,verb,or other adverb.

adverbial

Relating to anadverb.For example, anadverbial participleis aparticiplethat functions like an adverb in a sentence.

adverbial clause

A type ofdependent clausethat modifies a verb in anadverbialfashion. Examples areWhen my friend arrives,I will take him out to dinnerandIf it rains,I will go home(the latter example being specifically aconditional clause).

affix

Abound morphemeadded to a word’s stem; aprefix,suffix,interfix,etc. In the narrow sense,synonym ofsuffix.

agent noun

A noun that denotes anagentthat does the action denoted by the verb from which the noun is derived, such as "cutter" derived from "to cut". Such an agent can be either a person or a thing, and eithersentientornonsentient:thus definitions often begin, "One who, or that which,[does X]. "

AHD

TheAmerican Heritage Dictionary.For historical reasons, this abbreviation is sometimes used here to identify a respelled pronunciation that is given inenPRform.

alternative form

In definitions: An "alternative form" of a given word is another spelling of that word which is pronounced differently: for example,killikinickis an alternative form ofkinnikinnick.(A spelling which is pronounced the same is an "alternative spelling": for example,judgementis an alternative spelling ofjudgment.)

As a header: The header "Alternative forms"encompassesboth alternative spellings (judgement,judgment;sulphur,sulfur) and alternative forms (killikinick,kinnikinnick), as well as differences in hyphenation (tea-cup,teacup), capitalization (LASER,laser), and other similar differences (naïveté,naiveté).

alus mider

A speech register in theBalinese language.

ambitransitive verb

Capable of being eithertransitiveorintransitivedepending on usage. For instance,eatandreadoptionally take adirect object:"I eat daily", "She likes to read" (both intransitive), "Read this book", "I do not eat meat" (both transitive).Ergative verbs(q.v.) are a kind of ambitransitive verb. Compareditransitive verb.

analogy

An etymological process in which a word or form is created after a certain pattern in an attempt to right a perceived irregularity. For example, in English,doveas the past tense ofdive(instead ofdived) is by analogy with strong verbs likedrive→droveandweave→wove.

andap

A speech register in theBalinese language.

anglicisation,anglicization

The modification of a foreign (borrowed) word to make it more English in form.

angryregister

Belonging to the angry linguisticregister,used only when the speaker is angry. This register is quite rare, but is found in theBikol languagesof the central Philippines.

animate

Having areferentthat includes a human or animal. Many languages (such as theSlavic languages) classify nouns based on animacy, using differentinflectionsor words with animate and inanimate nouns.

antepenultima

The third-to-lastsyllableof a word, before thepenultima.

antonym

A word with a meaning that is the opposite of a meaning of another word. For example,goodis an antonym ofbad.Contrastsynonym.

aorist

A grammatical category ofverbsthat is often aperfectivepast.

apheresis

The removal of a letter or sound from the beginning of a word.

aphesis

The removal of an initial unstressed sound from a word, the process by whichescarpbecamescarp.Words derived in this way are called aphetic.

apocope

Omission of the final sound or syllable of a word without changing its morphological structure or meaning. Occurs in Italian, Spanish, and other languages.

applicative

A grammatical voice or verb form where an oblique argument of the verb is promoted to a core argument.

approximant

Aconsonantsound produced by restricting the air flow through the mouth only slightly, resulting in a smooth sound. In English, the approximants are/l/,/ɹ/,/w/,/j/(as in the initial sounds ofloo,rue,wooandyou). Approximants are distinguished fromfricatives,in which the air is constricted enough to cause a rough, hissing or buzzing sound, andplosives,in which the air is blocked completely for a short period of time.

archaic

No longer in general use, but still found in some contemporary texts that aim for an antique style, like historical novels. For example,theeandthouare archaic pronouns, having been almost completely superseded byyou.Archaicis a stronger term thandated,but not as strong asobsolete.(SeeWiktionary:Obsolete and archaic terms.) Whereas an archaic term names a still-extant thing or non-outdated concept, ahistoricalterm names a former thing or outdated concept.

areal

Distributed across multiple languages inhabiting a particular area, due tolanguage contactamong them rather than due toinheritancefrom a common ancestor. The term can be applied either to words (seeloanword) or features of languages such as ingrammar,morphology,andphonology.See alsoWanderwortandstratum.

article

A type ofdeterminerthat is used as a grammatical indicator in some languages, and is usually central to the grammar and syntax of that language. In English, the articles are thedefinitearticlethe,and theindefinitearticlesaandan.Some languages may have more articles, such as the Frenchpartitivearticlesdu,de laanddes,while many languages lack articles altogether.

aspect

A property of a verb form indicating the nature of an action asperfective(complete) orimperfective(incomplete or continuing).

aspirated h

In French, an initial ⟨h⟩ that is treated as aconsonant;that is to say,liaisonandelisionare not permitted at the beginning of a word with an aspirated ⟨h⟩.

assimilation

Assimilation is a common phonological process by which one sound becomes more like a nearby sound. This can occur either within a word or between words. See alsodissimilation.

atelic

Theaspectof a verb that denotes an action without a definite endpoint or a goal that is tended towards, or rather an action withcumulative reference(such that the expression for that action may describe two or more actions of that kind that, when combined, still constitute a form of that action); contrasttelic.A kind of telicity distinction can be seen in English when specifying a duration in a (simple past) verb phrase: atelic verb phrases takefor(I built a houseforan hour.She loved meforyears.) (See alsoTelicityon Wikipedia.Wikipedia)

attributive

See also:Appendix:English nouns § Attributive

1. An adjective that stands in a syntactic position where it directly modifies a noun, as opposed to apredicativeadjective, which stands in apredicateposition but which modifies thesubjectof theclause.For example, inthe big green house,bigandgreenare attributive adjectives, whereas inThe house is big and green,bigandgreenare predicative adjectives. Some adjectives are only-attributive likeclose(ina close friend) orplain(inplain nonsense).
2. A noun or adjective (or phrase) that names a real object with theattributesof another real object. This is in contrast to asubstantivenoun or adjective, which names a real object that is the actualsubstancenamed by the noun or adjective.

augment

1. In some Indo-European languages, a prefixedvowel(अ-(a-)in Sanskrit,ἐ-(e-)in Greek) indicating a past tense in a verb.
2. InCelticlanguages, especially Old Irish, a preverb, usuallyro-,used to give a verb a resultative or potential meaning.
3. In certain Bantu languages, amorphemeprefixed to anoun classprefix.

augmentative

A word form expressing large size, importance, intensity, or seniority.

augmentless

(of nouns) Lacking anaugment.

auxiliary verborauxiliary

A verb that accompanies another verb in a clause. It is used to indicate distinctions intense,mood,voice,aspector other grammatical nuances. English examples arecan,will,have,be.

avoidanceterm

A word standardly used to replace atabooword.

B

back-formation

A term formed by reinterpretation of an older term, often by removing an apparent or real prefix or suffix from it; for example, the nounpeaarose because the final/z/sound inpeasesounded like a plural suffix. Similarly, the verbeditis a back-formation from the earlier nouneditor.Not to be confused withclipping,which just shortens a word without changing meaning or part of speech.

back vowel

Vowel sound produced in the back of the mouth. Examples in English include /uː/ inruleor /əʊ/ inpole.Contrasts to afront vowel.

backronym

A word that is either not anacronymbut is taken to be one and for which a full form is invented byback-formation,or is an acronym and for which an alternative full form is invented by back-formation.

backslang

A form ofslangin which the spelling of words is reversed.

bahuvrihi

Another term for anexocentriccompound.Contrasttatpurusa,karmadharayaanddvandva.

barytone

With the stress elsewhere than upon the final syllable. Compare withoxytone,paroxytone,andproparoxytone.

BC

Before Christ. Year-numbering system equivalent toBCE.

BCE

Before the Common, Current or Christian Era. Year-numbering system equivalent toBC.ADis expressed asCE.To automatically switch most dates to use the "BC" / "AD" style, check the Gadgets section inSpecial:Preferences(orWT:PREFSif you do not have an account).

blend

A word or name that combines two words, typically starting with the start of one word and ending with the end of another, such assmog(fromsmokeandfog) orWiktionary(fromwikianddictionary). Many blends areportmanteaus.

borrowing

Seeloanword.

bound form

A unit of language that can only be used as part of a word, not as a word on its own (such as the English suffix -ly). These typesmorphemesare ‘bound’ in that they are restricted on where and how they are allowed to occur, needing to be attached to a freestanding morpheme in order to exist. Many suffixes are often bound.

bowdlerization

The removal, from a text, of words or phrases that are considered offensive or vulgar.

broadly

Indicates a less precise (wider) use of words; short forbroadly speaking.For most practical purposes, synonymous withloosely.Contraststrict(narrow) senses.

C

c

Seecommon gender.

c., ca.

"Circa"(" about "). Hence, a quotation from" c. 1924 "or" ca. 1924 "is a quotation from approximately 1924.

calque

A borrowing by word-for-word translation: aloan translation.For example, the English expressionit goes without sayingis a calque (a literal, word-for-word translation) of Frenchça va sans dire,andflea marketis a calque of Frenchmarché aux puces(literally“marketwithfleas”).Contrariwise, the termskyscraperwas calqued into French asgratte-ciel(literally“scrapes-sky”).Calques are distinguished fromsemantic loansin that calques are not considered idiomatic expressions at the time that they are coined, whereas semantic loans would have had a pre-existing idiomatic meaning.

case

One of the forms of a noun, used to indicate its function in the phrase or sentence. Examples include:nominative,accusative,genitive,dative.

cat.

Abbreviation forcategory.

Without the period, theISO 639-3code for the Catalan language.

category

A collection of entries, used to categorize or group entries of words that are similar in syntax (for example, English plural nouns) or in sense (for example, English words pertaining to sports);seeWiktionary:Categorization.

catenativeverb

Averbable to be immediately followed by the full or bareinfinitive,orgerund(i.e. non-finite verbs).

→Appendix:English catenative verbs

causativeverb

A transitive verb that is derived from another verb, and expresses the act of making someone/something do the action of the base verb. Examples in English are:lay(cause tolie),set(cause tosit) andraise(cause torise). Comparefactitive verbs(e.g.shorten,enslave), which are similar but are derived from adjectives or nouns.

CE

Common, Current or Christian Era. Year-numbering system equivalent toAD.To automatically switch most dates to use the "BC" / "AD" style, check the Gadgets section inSpecial:Preferences(orWT:PREFSif you do not have an account).

cf.

"Confer"; "see"; "compare" – often used to indicate a word with similar, or opposite meaning.

circumfix

Anaffixcontaining both aprefixingand asuffixingelement existing as a singlemorphologicalunit. For example, the wordemboldenconsists ofbold(adjective)circumfixed withem- -en,a variant ofen- -en.

circumlocutory

Refers to a roundabout or indirect way of speaking; the use of more words than necessary to express an idea.

CJK,CJKV

Chinese, Japanese, Korean,(and Vietnamese);CJK characters.

classifier

Seecounter.

clause

A word or group of words that functions as a single unit in thesyntaxof asentence,where thehead(or central) word is averb;normally distinguished from aphrase,which is a similar unit where the head word is some otherpart of speech,such as anoun,adjectiveorpreposition.For example, thesentenceThe man entered the house, which was large and bluecontains two clauses, theindependent clauseThe man entered the houseand thedependent clausewhich was large and blue(here the dependent clause is specifically arelative clause,although not all dependent clauses are relative clauses).

clipping

A shortening of a word, without changing meaning or part of speech. Not to be confused withback-formation,which changes meaning, orellipsis,which shortens by omission of whole words. Also differs fromabbreviation,which shortens the written—rather than spoken—form of a word or phrase. See alsoapheresis,apocope.

clitic

A word that attaches to a phrase and cannot be used on its own, such as English-'s.Many languages have cliticpronouns(weak pronouns), which may be contrasted withemphaticorstrongpronouns; for example, English'llis a clitic version ofwilland generally attaches to the preceding word (he'll,a little dab'll do ya).

cognate

Descendedfrom the same sourcelexemeof anancestorlanguage.

coinage

A new word intentionally created with a definite meaning.

collective

Expressing a collection or aggregate of individuals by asingularform.

→Category:Collective nouns by language

collocation

A sequence of words or terms that are used together more often than by chance, i.e. that appears together relatively more often.

colloquial

Denotes words belonging to a spoken or vernacular variety of a language. These words are only properly used in a casual or familiar context. This label is only used with some languages; with others it is treated as a synonym ofinformal.If used,colloquialis stronger thaninformal(a general rule of thumb is that informal words may be used in the running text of a newspaper article, while a colloquial term would likely not appear without quotation marks).

Note:It is a common misconception thatcolloquialsomehow denotes "local" or a word being "regional".This is incorrect; the word root forcolloquialis related tolocution,notlocation.

combining form

A particular form of a term which is used as anaffix.For example,Afro-(as in words likeAfrocentric,Afro-American) is thecombining formofAfrican.

common gender,c

"Of commongender".Some languages have a distinct common gender that combinesmasculineandfemininebut is distinguished fromneuter.In other languages, a "noun of common gender" is a pair of nouns, one masculine and one feminine, that are identical in form, and that have the same sense except that one refers to men and the other to women. Distinguishepicene.

comparable

Of an adjective or adverb: able to be compared, havingcomparativeandsuperlativeforms that end in-erand-est(adjectives only), or in conjunction with the wordsmoreormost,or sometimesfurtherorfurthest.Examples:big,bigger,andbiggest;talented,more talented,andmost talented;upstairs,further upstairs,andfurthest upstairs.Some adjectives are trulyincomparable,such asdaily,additional,andelse.Many other adjectives, such asunique,existential,andbearableare generally considered incomparable, but controversially so, where examples can be readily cited of something being "more bearable"or"most perfect".

comparative

Aninflection,or different form, of acomparableadjective showing a relative quality, usually denoting "to a greater extent" but not "to the ultimate extent". (See alsosuperlativeanddegrees of comparison.) In English, thecomparativeform is usually formed by appending-er,or using the wordmore.For example, the comparative ofhardis "harder";ofdifficult,"more difficult".

compound

A word or name that combines two or more words without altering them, such asdishcloth(fromdishandcloth) orhigh school(fromhighandschool); the latter type is called anopen compound.Compound terms are indicated in etymologies using{{compound}}.(See alsoWT:ETY#Compound.)

concrete noun

Anounthat denotes something tangible or material, such as a person or place.Antonymofabstract noun.

concrete verb

In theSlavic languages,a verb of motion whose motion is unidirectional and expresses a single, completed action. Opposed toabstract verbs,whose motion is multidirectional or indirect, or whose action is repeated or in a series (iterative). Also called adeterminate verb.Seeabstract verbfor more discussion.

conditional mood

Themoodof averbused to signify that something iscontingentupon the outcome of something else. The conditional mood in English is normally introduced by the wordwould,as inIf I were rich, I would be happy.

conjugation

Theinflectionofverbs.See alsodeclension.

conjunction

A word used to join other words or phrases together into sentences.

connegative

Averbform used with thenegative verb.

connotation

Thesubjectiveand nonanalyticalmeaning (definition) of a word, such as its emotional overtones, as contrasted with itsobjectiveandanalyticalmeaning (definition), which constitutes itsdenotation(an example is given there).

consonant

Any sound that is not the dominant sound of asyllable,the dominant sound generally being avowel.

consonantism

The sequence ofconsonants,or the quality peculiar to the consonants of a given word or group of words.

consonant gradation

A form of consonantmutationfound in certain, particularly Uralic, languages, which is historically conditioned by the openness of the following syllable.

construct state

In some languages, a grammatical form that is used in construing a noun or adjective with another noun or adjective. In theSemiticlanguages, the construct form is usually a noun modified by a following noun in a genitive construction. The construct state of such a nounXcan usually be translated to English asX of.InPersian,the construct state is typically used for all nouns and adjectives in anoun phraseexcept the very last.

contamination

Influence of one term on the development of another term whereby they come to have similar meanings or similar sound,conflation.

contraction

A word or phrase shortened in speech, sometimes represented in writing with apunctuation markin place of missing letters (e.g.Englishdonot→don'torRomaniannue→nu-i).

contranym

A term with two opposite meanings.

conversion

The process whereby a new word is created without changing the form, often by allowing the word to function as a new part of speech.

coordinate term

A term that is a different type of the samehypernym(loosely "category" ).Carandbicycleare coordinate terms to each other, both beinghyponymsof a sharedhypernymvehicle.Although the term can be applied broadly – e.g.carandasteroidare boththings–, such usage is not useful in Wiktionary.

coordinativecompound

Anominalcompoundin which the two parts are coordinated and the intended meaning of the compound as a whole is a combination of the two parts. Also known as advandvacompound.Examples in English are not common but are found in many other languages, e.g. Greekμαχαιροπίρουνο(machairopírouno,“cutlery”,literally“knife-fork”)and Yiddishטאַטע־מאַמע(tate-mame,“parents”,literally“papa-mama”).Contrastexocentricandendocentriccompounds.

copula

A verb that links and equates itssubjectwith its object; also called alinking verb.The most common copula is the verbto be,but others exist, such asto seem,to appearandto sound.The object of a copula often has special properties. For example, it can be anadjective(John isvery tall) when most verbs require their objects to benounsorpronouns.In addition, in languages withcasedistinctions, the object of a copula is most commonly in thenominativecase, while the object of other verbs is usually in a different case, such as theaccusativecase. Many languages (e.g.Russian,Hebrew,andArabic) use anull copula(i.e. no word at all) in the present tense when English would use the wordsam,areoris.

corruption

Anonstandardform of a word, expression, or text, assigned a value judgment as beingdebased,especially when resulting frommisunderstanding,transcriptionerror, ormishearing;this term is applied in usage prescription but not in modern linguistic science.

countable,countable noun,count noun

Describes a noun which can be freely used with theindefinite article(aoranin English) and with numbers, and which therefore has apluralform.Antonym:uncountableormass noun.

counter

In linguistics, counters,measure wordsorclassifiersare words that are used in combination with a numeral to indicate an amount of something represented by some noun. They denote a unit or measurement and are used withmass nouns,and sometimes also withcount nouns.(Comparesingulative.)

D

dated

Formerly in common use, and still in occasional use, but now unfashionable; for example,wirelessin the sense of "broadcast radio tuner",groovy,andgayin the sense of "bright" or "happy" are all dated.Datedis not as strong asarchaicorobsolete.SeeWiktionary:Obsolete and archaic terms.

dative case,dat.

Acasethat is usually used as theindirect objectof a verb. For example, if English had a fullyproductivecase system, thenhimin "She gave him the ball" would most likely be in the dative.

declension

Theinflectionofnounsand words like them, or used together with them (i.e.nominals). See alsoconjugation.

defective

Normally would be expected to have a full set ofinflectedforms, but some of the inflections do not exist or are never used. English examples are the defective verbscanandshall,which do not haveinfinitiveforms (there is noto canorto shall).

defective spelling

In languages withmatres lectionis(consonantletters representingvowels), the form including no additional ones, this may still include a mater lectionis.

definite

Refers to forms of words that present something as known, identified, or immediately identifiable; in English, this is the basic meaning of thearticlethe;in some languages, this is a nominal or adjectivalinflection.In the Germanic languages, adjectives inflected as definite are referred to as "weak". In Hungarian, the definite conjugation is used to indicatedefinite objects,includinghim, her, it, them,and the formalyou.

degrees of comparison

Inflectionsof adjectives and adverbs which allow comparisons. English has threedegrees of comparison:positive,comparativeandsuperlative.Some other languages have other degrees, e.g.:comparative superlative,relative superlative,elative.

demonym

Anounoradjectivereferring to an inhabitant or native of a specific place. Sometimes the demonym is clearly related to the place name, as in EnglishMexicoand corresponding demonymMexican,but sometimes it is not, as in theNetherlandsvs.Dutch.Some languages (e.g. most Slavic languages) have different (but typically related) adjective and noun forms of a given demonym, while in other languages (e.g. most Romance languages), they are the same. English is inconsistent in this regard; contrastMexican(either an adjective or noun) withSwedish(adjective) vs.Swede(noun). In some cases in English there is no single-word noun form of a demonym, as inChinese,leading to locutions such asChinese personorperson from China.

denominal

Derived from anoun.

denotation

Theobjectiveandanalyticalmeaning (definition) of a word, as contrasted with its emotional overtones, which constitute itsconnotation.For example, the wordsstartandcommenceusually have the same denotation (i.e., "begin" ), but they often have (subjective) connotational difference (such that a parent might say, "start doing your homework as soon as you finish your snack and bathroom break" but would usually not say "commence doing your homework […]" because it sounds odd in a certain way (out of place in the context, unless emphasizing the word for humor, vocabulary building, or some other special purpose).

dependent

(In Greek and in the Gaelic languages) A verb form which is not used independently but preceded by a particle to form the negative or a tense form.

dependent clause

Aclausethat cannot stand on its own as a completesentence,as opposed to anindependent clause.Also known as asubordinate clause.Logically, a dependent clause modifies a word in another clause in the sentence. Common examples are (1)relative clauses(also known as "adjective clauses" or "adjectival clauses" ), which modify nouns (e.g.The manwhom I saw yesterdayis leaving today); (2)adverbial clauses,which modify verbs in an adverbial fashion (e.g.When it is time to leave,I will go home), andnoun clauses,which take the place of nouns (e.g.I saidthat my name is JohnorI suggestedthat he leave).

deponent

(In Greek, Latin, and some Gaelic and Nordic languages) A verb with an active meaning which conjugates in a passive manner.

derived terms

A post-POSheading listing terms in the same language that are morphological derivatives. Confusingly, "derived" is also used in etymology sections to indicate that the term comes from a term inanotherlanguage, but is not directlyborrowedorinherited.

derogatory

Seepejorative.

descendants

A post-POSheading listing terms in other languages that have borrowed or inherited the word.

descriptive

Concerninglinguistic description:how a language is in fact used (as evidenced bycorpi), as contrasted with how some people think that it ought to be used, which is sometimes different; compareprescriptive.

descriptivecompound

Anominalcompoundin which one part modifies the other, where both parts refer to the intended meaning of the compound as a whole. Also known as akarmadharayacompound.The intended meaning of the compound as a whole is an extension of the sum-of-parts meaning of the compound. Examples in English are "blackboard"(a type of board which is [often] black) and"houseboat"(a boat which is also a house). Contrastdeterminativecompounds, where the modified component but not the modifier refer to the intended meaning as a whole, as in "rainbow"and"footstool".Descriptive compounds are a subtype ofendocentriccompounds, which are in turn contrasted withexocentricandcoordinativecompounds.

desiderative

A verb form indicating a wish.

determinate verb

In theSlavic languages,another term forconcrete verb.

determinativecompound

Anominalcompoundin which one part modifies the other, where the modified component (but not the modifier) refers to the intended meaning of the compound as a whole. Also known as atatpurusacompound.Examples in English are "rainbow"(a type ofbow,caused by the rain) and "footstool"(a type ofstool,intended for one's feet). Contrastdescriptivecompounds, where both the modifier and modified component refer to the intended meaning as a whole, as in "blackboard"or"houseboat".Determinative compounds are a subtype ofendocentriccompounds, which in turn are contrasted withexocentricandcoordinativecompounds.

determiner

A noun modifier that expresses the in-context reference or quantity of a noun or noun phrase. Determiners are often considered adjectives, but in fact are not quite the same; for example, in English,bigis an adjective, so “the big car” is grammatical while * “He saw big car” is not, butsomeis a determiner, so * “the some car” is not grammatical while “He saw some car” is. In English, adjectives cansometimesstand alone without a noun, while determiners nearlyalwayscan (contrast * “He saw big” with “He saw some” ), such that they are sometimes considered pronouns as well as adjectives.

deverbal

A word, often asubstantive,derived from averb.Contrastdenominal.

diachrony

A viewpoint of analysis of a language or phrase within a language which considers thehistorical changesover time which have shaped its state at a given later time. The term is typically used to contrast withsynchrony.

diacritic

A diacritic – also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or an accent – is aglyphadded to a letter, or basic glyph. Examples:acute( ´ ), double acute ( ˝ ),breve( ˘ ), inverted breve ( ̑ ),cedilla( ¸ ),diaeresis/umlaut( ¨ ),macron( ¯ ),overring( ˚ ),perispomene( ͂ ), etc. The main use of a diacritical mark is to change the sound-values of the letters or cadence of a word to which they are added. Examples are the diaereses in the borrowed French wordsnaïveandNoël,which show that the vowel with the diaeresis mark is pronounced separately from the preceding vowel; the acute andgraveaccents, which can indicate that a final vowel is to be pronounced, as insakéand poeticbreathèd;and the cedilla under the ⟨c⟩ in the borrowed French wordfaçade,which shows it is pronounced/s/rather than/k/.

diaeresis

Adiacritic( ¨ ) placed over avowelletter indicating that it is sounded separately.

dialectal

Of or relating to adialect.

diminutive

A word form expressing smallness, youth, endearment, unimportance, or contempt. Opposite ofintensive.

direct object

Thenounor nounphrasethat averbis directly acting upon. In some languages direct objects are marked with theaccusative case.

→transitive verb,indirect object

displaced

Of an older word: having been replaced by a newer word.

dissimilation

A phonological process whereby one of a pair of similar sounds within a word or phrase becomes dissimilar: for example, the shift l…l > r…l in the derivation of Middle Frenchcoronnelfrom Old Italiancolonnello.It has an opposite effect toassimilation.

ditransitive verb

(of a verb) taking two objects, such asgivein “Give me the ball” (wheremeis anindirect objectandthe ballis adirect object). Compareintransitive,transitive,andambitransitiveverbs.

doublet

One of two (or more) words in a language that have the sameetymologicalroot (as inetymon,not root morphemes like Proto-Indo-European roots) but have come to the modern language through different routes. Doublets can come about e.g., asloanwordsfrom two different but related languages, as loanwords acquired from the same language at two different stages, as one loanword from a related language plus its nativecognate,or as derivatives formed at two different stages in the history of a language. Example:leverandlevatorare doublets (more atCategory:English doublets).

dual,dual number

Agrammatical numberthat indicates exactly two items or individuals. Usually contrasts withsingularandplural.

dummy pronoun

Apronounthat has no referent. For instance,itinit is good to know that you are okayis a dummysubject.It is used in order to provide the verbiswith a syntactic subject, because English does not allow anull subject.

dvandva

Another term for acoordinativecompound.Contrastbahuvrihi,tatpurusaandkarmadharaya.

dysphemism

A term carrying negative connotations or imagery to replace a (more) neutral original. Contrasteuphemism.

E

ed.

"Editor"(or sometimes" edition "). This abbreviation is often used in attributing quotations; the editor of a compilation is generally the individual in charge of selecting what works to include.

eggcorn

A word or phrase that sounds like and is mistakenly used in a seemingly logical or plausible way for another word or phrase either on its own or as part of a set expression.

elative

InSemiticlanguages, a stage of gradation that can be used both for asuperlativeandcomparative.(See alsodegrees of comparison.)

elative case

Acasewhich expresses "moving out of".

elision

The removal of aphonemeor sequence of phonemes from a word, particularly at the beginning or end.

ellipsis

The omission of a word or phrase that can be inferred from the context.

elongated

Withlettersadded foremphasis,like "stoooop!" Usually this isnonstandardwriting, but in some uses, such as in interjections, this is normal: "awwwww!", "shhhh!"

emphatic

Taking particular stress. English'sreflexivepronouns double as emphatic ones, as in "I myself have not seen it" (where "myself" emphasizes the role of the speaker); some other languages (such as Greek) have emphatic pronouns that they distinguish fromweakorcliticpronouns.

enclisis

The phonetic joining of a word with the preceding word. In modern Greek this may result in an extra stress on the first word, thus:

"το όνομαμου είναι "("to ónomamou eínai ")becomes"το όνομάμου είναι "("to ónomámou eínai ")

endonym

A name used by a group or category of people to refer to themselves or their language (contrastexonym). Also calledautonymorselfname.

endocentriccompound

Anominalcompoundin which one part modifies the other, where the modified compound refers to the intended meaning of the compound as a whole. Examples in English are "blackboard"(a type ofboard), "houseboat"(a type ofboat), "rainbow"(a type ofbow) and "footstool"(a type of stool). Endocentric compounds are categorized into two subtypes,descriptivecompounds (where the modifier also refers to the intended meaning of the compound as a whole, as inblackboardandhouseboat) anddeterminativecompounds (where the modifier does not refer to the intended meaning of the compound as a whole, as inrainbowandfootstool). For example, ahouseboatis a type ofhouseas well as a type ofboat,and ablackboardis (usually)black.However, arainbowis not a type ofrain(rather it is abowthat is causedbythe rain), and similarly afootstoolis not a type offoot(it is a stool intendedforthe feet). Endocentric compounds are contrasted withexocentricandcoordinativecompounds.

enPR

Wiktionary'sEnglish Phonemic Representationsystem. Details in theEnglish pronunciation key.

epenthesis

The insertion of aphoneme,letter, orsyllableinto a word, usually to satisfy the phonological constraints of a language or poetic context. In careful use epenthesis only refers to insertions in the middle of a word: cf.prothesis,paragoge.

epicene

Having a single form for both male and female referents.

eponym

A word formed from a real or fictive person’s name. Comparetoponym,a word derived from a place name.

eponymous

Using its own name as a title for a work of art.

equative

A construction showing an equal quality; for example, the equative ofhappyisas happy as.In some languages, such as Welsh and Old Irish, the equative is a distinct form of the adjective.

ergative case

Acaseused in some languages, which marks thesubjectof atransitive verb,but not the subject of anintransitive verb.

ergative verb

A verb that can be transitive or intransitive, where the intransitivesubjectis thepatient,the same role as the transitive object. Essentially, an ergative is an intransitive verb that is its owncausativewhen used transitively. For example,breakis an ergative verb. The same thing happens to the window in "The window broke" (subject) as in "I broke the window" (direct object), but in the second example there is also anagentwhich causes the window to break.

etymology

An account of the origin and historical development of a word.

etymon

The source word of a given word.

euphemism

A term that is less vulgar or less offensive than the one it replaces. Contrastdysphemism.

excessive spelling

In languages withmatres lectionis(consonantletters representingvowels) a form including one or more additional ones. For example in Hebrewאדום(“red”)ofאָדֹם,an addedו(“vav”)indicating/o/.

excrescent

A sound in a word withoutetymologicalreason, added for articulatory purposes.

exocentriccompound

Anominalcompoundin which the first part modifies the second and neither part alone conveys the intended meaning. Examples in English are "barefoot"(i.e." having bare feet "; neither component refers to a person) and"houndstooth"(i.e." resembling a hound's tooth "; neither component refers to fabric). Also known as abahuvrihicompound.Contrastendocentric(with its subtypesdeterminativeanddescriptive) andcoordinative.

exonym

A name for a place, people or language used by foreigners instead of the native-language version (theendonym).

expletive

Avulgarterm, anintensifier,or a word without meaning added to fill a syntactic position.

expletiveinfixation

Tmesisaccompanied by insertion of an expletive or invective between the divided parts, e.g.,abso-bloody-lutely.

expressiveterm

A term with additional expressive content compared with the basic meaning of the term. This term is common in Slavic lexicography and is found in most Czech, Slovak and Polish dictionaries, but there is no exact equivalent in English lexicography. The closest equivalents might be a combination ofcolloquialand eitherendearingorpejorative,as the case may be.

eye dialect

A deliberate misspelling used in writing to indicate that the speech of a character is vernacular, non-standard or uneducated; the spelling represents how they would spell the words if they were asked to write them down. As such, it is the functional opposite ofpronunciation spelling.

ezafeorezâfe

In Persian:اِضافِه(ezâfe).Thepossessiveorgenitiveconstruction in Persian. See alsoʾiḍāfa.

F

f

Seefeminine.

factitiveverb

A transitive verb that is derived from an adjective or noun, and expresses the act of making someone/something have the properties (or have more of the properties) of the base adjective or noun. Examples in English are:shorten(makeshorter),strengthen(makestronger) andenslave(make aslave). Comparecausative verbs,which are similar but are derived from other verbs.

false cognate

A word in a language that bears a phonetic and semantic resemblance to a word in another or the same language but is not etymologically related to it and thus not a truecognate.Examples includeEnglishday/Portuguesedia,GermanFeuer/Frenchfeu(both meaning "fire" ),Malaydua/Sanskritद्व(dva)(both meaning "two" ), andEnglishdog/Mbabaramdog.Comparefalse friend.

false friend

A word in a language that bears a phonetic resemblance to a word in another language, often because of a common etymology, but has a different meaning. Examples includeEnglishparent/Portugueseparente(“relative”)andEnglishembarrassed/Spanishembarazada(“pregnant”).Comparefalse cognate.

familiar

Describes a context where those conversing, through speech or written word, are well acquainted with one another and in casual situations often use moreinformalorcolloquialterms to communicate. Many languages haveinflectionsandpronounsdedicated specifically to forms that are familiar, in contrast with theirpolitecounterparts.

feminine,f

"Feminine"; said of a word belonging to the femininegender,which is usually contrasted with themasculinegender, and also often with aneutergender.

figurative

Notliteral.Offigures of speech,words or expressions used asmetaphorsorsimiles,e.g. saying that a greedy person is a pig or is like a pig, or asmetonyms,e.g. usingcrownto refer to the monarchy.

first person,1st person

Agrammatical personthat indicates the speaker him/her/itself, or a group to which the speaker belongs. Examples are the English pronounsIandwe.

fl.

"Floruit"(Latin for" he/she flourished "). Used when the exact dates of a person's birth and death are unknown to denote a date or period during which the person was known to have been alive or active.

focus

An adverb that indicates focus within the sentence.

folk etymology

A misunderstanding of theetymologyof a word; a falseetymologythat incorrectly explains the origin of a word.

formal

Describes word choice andsyntaxwhich is mainly appropriate in formal contexts, such as in official or legal documents, essays, and sometimes when talking with one's superiors or elders.Informalterms, frequently those that originate through casual speech (colloquial), are often inappropriate in formal contexts. See alsohigher register.

fossil word

A word that is broadlyobsoletebut remains in currency because it is contained within anidiomthat is still in use.

fpl

"Feminineplural";of feminine gender and plural number.

frequentative

Expressingrepetitionof an action.

fricative

Aconsonantsound produced by air flowing through a constriction in the mouth, and typically producing a sibilant, hissing, buzzing or otherwise "rough" quality. In English, there are fricatives that arevoiceless/f/,/s/,/ʃ/,/θ/(as in the final sounds ofbuff,bus,bashandbath), and there are correspondingvoicedsounds/v/,/z/,/ʒ/,/ð/(as in the final sounds ofabove,buzz,beigeandbathe). Fricatives are distinguished fromplosives,in which the air is blocked completely for a short period of time, andapproximants,in which the air is not constricted enough to cause the characteristic rough sound of a fricative.

front vowel

Avowelproduced in the front of the mouth. In English, the front vowels are/æ/,/ɛ/,/eɪ/,/ɪ/,/i/(as in the vowels ofbat,bet,bait,bit,andbeatrespectively). Contrasts to aback vowel.

future perfect

Atensethat expresses action completed at some time in the future; in English it is formed by use ofwill have(orshall have) and apastparticiple.

future tense

Thetenseof averbused to refer to an event, transaction or occurrence that has not yet happened, is expected to happen in the future, or might never happen. An English example iswillgoinI will go home tomorrow.

G

gemination

A phenomenon when aconsonantis pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than is done normally.

gender

A way of classifyingnounsin some languages. In such languages, each noun has a specific gender (often determined by its meaning and/or form), and other words (especiallyadjectivesandpronouns) will often change form to agree with the noun's gender. See alsonoun class.

gender-neutral

Of language constructs, not indicating or restricted by gender, and thus applicable to those of any gender and to those of no gender.

genericized trademark

A successful brand name or trademark that has come to refer to the generic class of objects rather than the specific brand type. The inclusion of such a term in a dictionary reflects adescriptivefact about how speakers use the language, but it does not control or inhibit a trademark owner's legal rights to defend the trademark's protected status, which is determined only through legal and judicial means. (See usage notes.)

genitive case

Acasethat expresses possession or relation, equivalent to the Englishofor-'s.

gerund

Any of various non-finiteverbforms in various languages. In English, a "gerund"refers to a verb in its-ingform when used in a way that resembles the use of anoun.Despite showing noun-like behavior in the context of the surrounding sentence, gerunds show verbal behavior in the context of their own internal clause: they can take direct objects or be modified by adverbs. In this way, gerunds are distinguished from deverbal nouns ending in-ing,which occur in noun phrases that can take determiners or be modified by adjectives. For example, "manufacturing" is a gerund in the following sentence: "Efficiently manufacturing this device is difficult." It is averbal noun(not a gerund) in this sentence: "The efficient manufacturing of this device is difficult." In other languages, gerund can refer to a form that often functions as anadverbto formadverbialphrases or the continuous tense.

ghost word

Afictitiousorerroneousword, originally meaningless (not used in practice), that has been published in a dictionary or similarly authoritative reference work or otherwise listed as genuine, generally as the result of misinterpretation, misreading, or typographical error, but occasionally intentionally as afictitious entry.

government

A grammatical requirement that a word or sense imposes on its dependent words. Withcase government,the dependent word must be inflected in a particulargrammatical case.For example, the Latin prepositionex(“out of”)governs the ablative (requires that the complement is inflected in the ablative case). Also calledrection.

grammatical number

Seenumber.

grammatical person

Seeperson.

grave accent

Adiacriticmark ( ` ) used in many languages to distinguish the pronunciations ofvowels.

H

habitual

A verbalaspectspecifying an action as occurring habitually: the subject performs the action usually, ordinarily, or customarily. Also calledconsuetudinal.

hapax legomenon,hapax

Incorpus linguistics,a word that occurs only once within a given corpus, either in the written record of an entire language, in the works of an author, or in a single text.

haplology

Theelisionordeletionof a part of a word (a sequence ofphonemes,or a series of letters) that is repeated (either exactly or with slight change). An example of haplological pronunciation is the UK English pronunciation oflibraryas if spelledlibry,where the sequence ofphonemes/ɹəɹ/is shortened to/ɹ/.An example of haplology relating to spelling issymbology,fromsymbol+‎-ology,where the sequenceololis shortened tool.Contrast withreduplication,the repetition of a part of a word.

hedge

Inpragmatics,a term (word, phrase, or clause) used to lessen the force of an utterance: for instance, to avoid giving insult or bragging about one's knowledge.

higherregister

Belonging to the higher linguisticregister,meaning that it might be used when the speaker wishes to sound refined or educated, informalsituations, or when writing. Such terms are usually less common or known and are not used in everyday speech. See alsoliterarywhich is a sub-category.

historical

Describing anobjectorconceptwhich is no longer extant or current; for example,Czechoslovakia,stomacher,orphlogiston.Distinguish: ahistoricalterm is still in use but refers to a thing no longer in current use; anobsoleteterm is no longer in use, while the thing it once referred to may or may not exist. Whereas anarchaicterm names a still-extant thing or non-outdated concept, a historical term names a former thing or outdated concept.

holonym

A term describing something that is formed by other smaller, somehow combined or related things. For example,treeis a holonym ofleaf;bodyis a holonym ofarm;Canadais a holonym ofBritish Columbiaetc. The opposite of holonym, which describes things that arepartof a whole, is calledmeronym.

homograph

A word that is spelled the same as another word, usually having a differentetymology.

homophone

A word which is pronounced the same as another word but differs in spelling, meaning or origin.

hortative

A verbal construction (in some languages expressed with a dedicated grammatical mood) whereby a speaker encourages an action on the part of his own group; the hortative is for the first person plural what theimperativeis to the second person.

hotword

A newly coined term, or newly adopted sense of an existing term, that has become very popular in a short time. It is kept provisionally as it is likely to remain in usage, even though it would otherwise fail the "spanning at least one year" requirement of Wiktionary'scriteria for inclusion.

humorous

A word, term, or phrase that is utteredin jest(jocularly) or that originated in that way.

hyperbole

Deliberate or unintentional overstatement, particularly if extreme.

hypercorrect

Incorrect because of the misapplication of a standard rule; for example,octopiused as the plural form ofoctopusis hypercorrect because-us→-iis the rule for forming plurals oforiginally-masculine nouns of the Latin second declension,whereasoctopusactually derives from Ancient Greek and has the plural formoctopodesconsistent with its etymology.

hyperforeign

Incorrectly applying foreign reading rules, such as in pronouncing the "j" inTaj MahalorBeijingas[ʒ]rather than[dʒ],or dropping the[t]inclaret.

hypernymorhyperonym

A term indicating acategoryanother term is part of, informally called “blanket” or “umbrella” term. For example,animalis a hypernym ofbird,which is in turn a hypernym ofeagle.The opposite of hypernym, which indicates terms pertaining to a category, ishyponym.

hyperthesis

A form ofmetathesisin which non-contiguous sounds are switched.

hyphenation

The splitting of a word across a line boundary, with a hyphen at the end of the first part. For example, the hyphenation ofhyphenationis given as "hy‧phen‧ation" meaning that it is split across a line break ashy-phenationor ashyphen-ation.

hyponym

A more specific term within a category described by another term, indicating a “type-of” relationship. For instance,alternative rockis a hyponym ofrock,which in turn is a hyponym ofmusic.The opposite of hyponym, which describes larger categories, ishypernym.

I

ʾiḍāfa

In Arabic:إِضَافَة(ʔiḍāfa).Thepossessiveorgenitiveconstruction in Arabic. See alsoezafe(orezâfe).

ideophone

A word that evokes an idea in sound, often a vivid impression of certain sensations or sensory perceptions, e.g. sound, movement, color, shape, or action. They may be more common in East Asian languages. In Chinese lexicography, such sense is usually described as……ĐíchDạng tửor……Mạo,i.e. “the appearance of...”. The attributive form isideophonic.

idiom

A phrase whose meaning is unapparent or unobvious from the individual words that make it up, such asbeat around the bush(“avoid an uncomfortable topic”),come a cropper(“suffer misfortune”),orpay through the nose(“pay an unusually large amount”).Idioms are often, but not alwaysset phrases,and are usually distinct fromproverbs.

idiomatic

Pertaining or conforming to the mode of expression characteristic of a language. Idioms,collocations,andmodal verbsare examples of idiomatic language.

imitative

Imitatingorrepresentingthesoundof something. (The main class of examples is theonomatopoeicones.)

imparisyllabic

A word with one or more inflections with more syllables than the lemma form. For example: the Greekμπακάλης(bakális,“grocer”)andμπακάληδες(bakálides,“grocers”)and the Latinmens(“mind”)andmentis(“minds”)(cf.parisyllabic).

imperfect

Theimperfective pasttense of a verb, indicating that the action described happened repeatedly, habitually or continuously.

imperative mood

Themoodof averbexpressing an order or command. An English example is the commandgo!Commands can also be, and often are,polite,such asplease go downstairs.In many languages imperativeinflectionsare the same as or similar tosubjunctiveones, reflecting the shared trait of non-indicativenature: yet-unrealizedideas.

imperfective

Anaspectof theverbwhich denotes an action or condition that does not have a fixed temporal boundary, but ishabitual,unfinished,continuous,repetitiveorin progress.Common inSlavic languagessuch asRussian.Contrastperfective.

imperfective past

A verb form ofimperfectiveaspectandpasttense,which is used to describe an action or event which was happening habitually, continuously or repeatedly in the past, as in “Tom was painting the fence” or “Tom used to paint the fence.”

impersonal

A lack ofgrammatical personaltogether, or an indefinite/undefined person. An example is the English pronounone.See alsoimpersonal verbs.

impersonalverb

A verb that cannot take asubject,or takes a third-person neuter subject pronoun (e.g.it) without anantecedent.The termweather verbis also sometimes used in some texts, since such verbs of weather (e.g.rain) are impersonal in many languages. Many verbs that are personal andactivein English are expressed in other languages using impersonal constructions. An example is the English sentence "I must do it", expressed inFrenchusing the impersonal verbfalloir(“to benecessary”),as inilfautquejelefasse(literally“It is necessarythat I do it”).

inanimate

Having areferentthat does not include a human or animal. Many languages (such as theSlavic languages) classify nouns based on animacy, using differentinflectionsor words with animate and inanimate nouns. For verbs, this indicates that they are usually applied only to inanimate objects or concepts, and rarely used in the first or second persons.

incomparable

(of adjectives) unable to be compared, or lacking acomparativeandsuperlativefunction.Seecomparable.Examples of adjectives that are not comparable:annual,first,extra,satin,six-figure.

indeclinable,undeclinable,invariableorinvariant

In languages withinflection,lacking distinct inflected forms when they would be expected to exist. Indeclinable words have the same form in all cases. For example, the English nounsheepis invariable because its plural is alsosheep.Acronymsandloanwordsare often indeclinable in many languages. Poorly-attested words from ancient languages are sometimes denoted "indeclinable" when they can't be assigned to a declension class with certainty.

indefinite

Refers to forms of words that present something as not yet identified or not immediately identifiable; in English, this is the basic meaning of thearticlea;in some languages, this is a nominal or adjectivalinflection.In the Germanic languages, adjectives inflected as indefinite are referred to as "strong". In Hungarian and also in Mansi, the indefinite conjugation indicatesno objectorindefinite objects,includingme, us,and the informalyou.

independent clause

Aclausethat can stand on its own as a completesentence,as opposed to adependent clause.

indeterminate verb

In theSlavic languages,another term forabstract verb.

indicative mood

Themoodof averbused in ordinary factual or objective statements.

indirect object

A grammatical role of aditransitive verbthat usually manifests as a recipient or goal. In some languages indirect objects are marked with thedative case.

→direct object

infix

Amorphemeoraffixinserted inside a word.

infinitive

A non-finiteverb form consideredneutralwith respect toinflection;depending on language variously found used withauxiliary verbs,insubordinate clauses,or acting as agerund,and often as thedictionary form.In English, the infinitive is formed with the wordto,e.g.toread.

inflection

The change in form of a word to represent various grammatical categories, such astense(e.g. past tense, present tense, future tense) ornumber(e.g. singular, plural). For example, the verbrunmay be inflected to produceruns,ran,andrunning.In highly inflected languages, such as Latin, there will be many more forms. Two major types of inflection areconjugation(inflection ofverbs) anddeclension(inflection ofnouns,adjectives,andpronouns).

informal

Denotes spoken or written words that are used primarily in afamiliaror casual context. Do not confuse withslangornonstandard.See alsocolloquial.

inherited

Denotes words which etymologically are notborrowingsbut derive through regular or sporadicsound change,without additional affixation, from a corresponding term in the language that is its direct historical ancestor. For example, Englishoneisinheritedfrom Proto-Germanic*ainaz.

initialism

Anabbreviationthat is formed from the initial letters of a sequence of words. Initialisms that are pronounced as words, such asUNICEF,are usually calledacronyms,so the terminitialismis generally only used for those that are pronounced letter by letter, such asU.S.

inline reference

A reference whose point of application is indicated in the text.

instrumental case,ins.

Acaseused to express means or agency—and is generally indicated in English by "by" or "with" with the objective.

intensifier

Awordorparticlethat heightens the intensity of meaning of a term.

intensive

A word form expressing great size, power or emotion. Opposite ofdiminutive.

interjection

An expression of emotion ( "ouch!", "wow!" ) or any of several kinds of expression that functions as a replacement of a sentence (prosentence) or that are not syntactically connected to a sentence, including curses ( "damn!" ), greetings ( "hey", "bye" ), response particles ( "okay", "oh!", "m-hm", "huh?" ), and hesitation markers ( "uh", "er", "um" ), and perhaps profanities, discourse markers and fillers.

interfix

Anempty morph(or meaningless morph) inserted between twomorphemesin the process of word formation, such as-i-and-o-in English.

internationalism

A loanword that occurs in several languages with the same or similar meaning and etymology, often due to the occurrence of several simultaneous borrowings and/or a chain of successive borrowings happening in quick succession. This commonly results in the exact etymological lineage of a term being difficult or impossible to trace for a given language. For examplebus, doctor, hotel, internet, taxi,ortelevision.International scientific vocabularyis a large subclass of internationalisms.

interrogative

A word used to ask questions.

intransitive

Of averb:not taking adirect object;nottransitive.For example, the verblistendoes not usually take a direct object; it is grammatically incorrect to say "I listened the concert" (instead of the correct "I listened to the concert" with theindirect object"to the concert" ).

Of an adposition (such as apreposition), or of anadverb:not having anominalcomplement. For example, using the following prepositions or adverbs without a complement (here in parentheses):down(the stairs),under(the bridge),inside(the building),aboard(the ship),underneath(the table),here,there,abroad,downtown,afterwards,…

invariable

Seeindeclinable.

invariant

Seeindeclinable.

inversion

A grammatical construction where the normal word order is reversed. An example in English is: "Will Fred stay?"

iotation

A specific occurrence ofpalatalizationthat occurred in theProto-Slavic language,in which aconsonantcombined with the palatal approximant/j/to form a palatalizedconsonant.Also, any similar process occurring in a laterSlavic languageor elsewhere. For example, under certain circumstances inRussian,underlyings; z; t; d; k; gare iotated toš; ž; č or šč; ž; č; žrespectively (pronounced/ʂ/;/ʐ/;/t͡ɕ/or/ɕː/;/ʐ/;/t͡ɕ/;/ʐ/respectively). (SeeAppendix:Russian verbs#Slavic iotationfor the full iotation rules inRussian;otherSlavic languagesbehave similarly.)

IPA

TheInternational Phonetic Alphabet;a standardized system for transcribing the sounds in any spoken language.

ʾiʿrāb

Also calleddesinential inflection;in Arabic:إِعْرَاب(ʔiʕrāb).A number ofinflectionalendings, applied to Arabic nouns, adjectives, and verbs, which—with minor exceptions—do not appear in writing, and moreover are not pronounced inpausa,i.e. at the end of a sentence or before a pause. Nevertheless, these endings are a regular and required element of Qur'ānic and Classical Arabic. In Modern Standard Arabic, however, they are rather often avoided due to dialectal influence. In nouns and adjectives, the ʾiʿrāb primarily has the function of marking the cases (nominative,genitive,accusative), while in verbs it marks the moods (indicative,subjunctive,jussive). All of these are only occasionally distinguishable without application of the ʾiʿrāb.

irregular

Not following the usual rules ofinflection;for example, the plural of Englishmanismen,which is irregular; the regularly formed plural would have been *mans.

iterative

Expressive of an action that is repeated with frequency.

J

jussive mood

In certain languages (e.g. Hebrew, Arabic and Esperanto), amoodof averbused to indicate a command, permission or agreement with a request (distinct from theimperative).

K

karmadharaya

Another term for adescriptivecompound.Contrastbahuvrihi,tatpurusaanddvandva.

Katharevousa

Theclassicallybased artificial (standardized) Greek language created at the start of Greece's independence from theOttoman Empire.It was used for all formal and official purposes until 1976.
(Note: In Wiktionary, Katharevousa terms are entered under (modern)Greek.)

kenning

Ametaphoricalcompound or phrase describing basic objects in anallusivefashion, especially in Germanic poetry.

Kulturwort

A type ofWanderwortwhich is specific to a particular culture or which is spread by an influential cross-cultural phenomenon. Kulturworts (orKulturwörter) are often names of products distributed by trade and religious or ideological terms.

L

learned borrowing

Aloanwordthat was borrowed directly on purpose, instead of through normallanguage contact,from another language, especiallyclassical languagessuch as Latin, Ancient Greek or Sanskrit, and which has not undergone significant reshaping due tosound changeor analogy with inherited terms. Such borrowings are thus oftenunadapted.Compare withsemi-learned borrowings,which have been significantly reshaped, andinheritedterms, which have undergone all the normal sound changes of a language. A theme of Latin's influence on modern European languages is that in many cases the same Latin word has been borrowed into any given modern language multiple times in different eras, and the morphologic and semantic facts about each descendant word differ in predictable ways (by eras); a concise summary for the case of English (for example) is offered in some introductory textbooks, such as Burriss and Casson.A typical example of this process is that the Portuguese termartículo(“articulus”)is a learned borrowing fromLatinarticulus(“joint, limb, division”);the termartigo(“article”)is a semi-learned borrowing from the same term, which was borrowed early enough to undergo later sound changes thatlenitedcintogand deletedlbetween vowels; and the termartelho(“toe”)is inherited from the same Latin term.

lemma

The headword or citation form of aninflectedword, i.e. the form under which a word is found in a dictionary. For example, in English, nouns are usually listed under their singular form (apple,rather thanapples), and verbs under their infinitive form (open,rather thanopens,openedoropening). Which form is used as the lemma varies from language to language. For verbs, for example, French, German, Spanish and many other European languages use theinfinitive,but Latin, Greek and Bulgarian use thefirst-personsingularpresentindicative,while Macedonian uses thethird-personsingularpresentindicative,and Arabic and Hebrew use themasculinethird-personsingularpastindicative.See alsoWiktionary:Lemmas.

letter case

The distinction betweenmajuscule(uppercase) andminuscule(lowercase) letters.

lexeme

The abstract "word" underlying a set of inflections; for example,givesandgivenbelong to the same lexeme, which is usually identified by its lemma formgive.See also: (1)Wikipedia's article onlexemes,(2)Wiktionary:Languages with more than one grammatical gender,(3)conjugationand (4)declension.

liaison

The phonological fusion of two consecutive words and the manner in which this occurs, for example intrusion, consonant–vowel linking, etc.

ligature

A character that visually combines multiple letters, such asæ,œ,ßorij.

linking verb

Another term forcopula.

literal

Exactly as stated; read or understood without additional interpretation; notfigurativeormetaphorical.

literary

Ahigherregisterfound mainly in literature.

litotes

(fromAncient Greekλιτότης) is a rhetorical figure involvingunderstatementthat consists of saying that something haslessof one thing to meanmoreof the opposite. E.g.:he is not very cleverinstead ofhe is a stupid idiot;she's not very prettyinstead ofshe's ugly,etc. Not to be confused witheuphemism(although litotes can be used for the purpose of euphemism) ormeiosis,which is a similar figure of speech that also uses understatement.

loanblend

Apartial calque.

loanword(alsoloanorborrowing)

A word that wasadopted(borrowed) from another language, rather than formed within the language or inherited from a more ancient form of the same language. Loanwords may still be recognisably foreign (having non-native spelling or unusual pronunciation) (unadapted borrowings), or they may have become completely assimilated into the language (no longer perceived as foreign). For example, in English,schadenfreudeis still recognisably German, whereascellaris fully assimilated and no longer recognisably Latin (fromcellārium). Sometimes anaturalizedloanword can be both fully assimilatedandstill recognised as having foreign origin (e.g.taco,burrito). Compareloan translation(calque).

locative case,loc.

"Locative".Acaseused to indicate place, or the place where, or wherein. It corresponds roughly to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by". Some languages use the same locative case construct to indicate when, so the English phrase "in summer" would use the locative case construct.

locative-qualitative case

Nouns in the form of the locative-qualitative case are qualifiers in the sentence and signify the locational or temporal mark of the qualified word. The qualifier is not specific but general or universalized. (See alsoAppendix:Uyghur nouns.)

logophoricity

Logophorical pronouns (logophors) are personal pronouns in some languages (such as Ainu, Ewe and Japanese) that marks the speaker when being quoted (or the entity whose thoughs or feelings are being reported). See also:Wikipedia's article onlogophoricity.

loosely

Indicates an imprecise use of words; short forloosely speaking.For most practical purposes, synonymous withbroadly.Contraststrictornarrowsense;strictly.

M

m

Seemasculine.

m. pl.

Seempl.

macron

A short, straight, horizontaldiacriticalmark ( ¯ ) placed over any of various letters, usually to indicate that the pronunciation of avowelis long.

masculine,m

Belonging to the male grammaticalgender,in languages that have gender distinctions.

mass noun

Seeuncountable.

measure word

Seecounter.

mediopassive

The grammaticalvoicethat subsumes the meanings of both themiddle voiceandpassive voice.Several languages (e.g.Sanskrit,Greek,IcelandicandAlbanian) make amorphologicaldistinction between active and mediopassive voices, and in such languages, the mediopassive can have either middle, passive or (often)reflexivesemantics. Often used interchangeably with themiddle voice.

meiosis

A form ofunderstatementthat consists of downplaying or diminishing the focal quality of a statement for contrastive, humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes deployed as part of ahigher register.E.g.:that was actually quite goodinstead ofthat was excellent;he is somewhat displeasedinstead ofhe is furious,etc. Not to be confused witheuphemism(although meiosis can be used for the purpose of euphemism) orlitotes,which is a similar figure of speech that also uses understatement.

men'sspeech

In certain languages (for example,Karajá language), men and women use or historically used distinct words and inflected forms.

meronym

A term that denotes a part of the whole that is denoted by another term.The word "arm" is ameronymof the word "body".The term which describes thewhole,as being an opposite of meronym, isholonym.

metaphorical

The use of a word or phrase as ametaphorto refer to something that it is not, invoking a direct similarity between the word or phrase used and the thing described. See alsosimileandfigurative.

metanalysis

Seerebracketing.

metathesis

Asound changein which two sounds or groups of sounds exchange position in a word. A form showing metathesis is described asmetathetic.The sounds may be adjacent, as inax,the metathetic form of the verbask,or farther apart, as inSpanishpalabrafromLatinparabola;there, the sound change ishyperthesis.

metonym

A word that names an object from a single characteristic of it or of a closely related object, e.g.crownfor the sovereign in a monarchy.

middle voice

Thevoiceverb form in which thesubjectof a verb performs some action upon itself, as in the English sentenceThe plane landed(contrastactive voiceThe pilot landed the planeandpassive voiceThe plane was landed (by the pilot)). Often used interchangeably with themediopassive voice.In some languages, such asSanskrit,Ancient Greek,IcelandicandAlbanian,the middle voice is distinguishedmorphologicallyfrom the active voice.Ancient Greek,in particular, has a three-way morphological distinction between active, middle and passive voices in theaoristandfuturetenses.

minced oath

A euphemism based on a profanity that has been altered to reduce or remove the objectionable characteristics of the original expression. Examples in English includeheckinstead ofhellanddanginstead ofdamn.

mixed

A type of declension in German that uses endings that are a combination ofstrongandweakendings. In adjectives, the mixed declension is used when accompanied by an indefinite article, or more generally by anein-word (a determiner that has a null ending in the nominative masculine and neuter singular, similar to the indefinite articleein). The mixed declension uses strong endings precisely in those inflections where the indefinite article has a null ending, and weak endings otherwise. By analogy, nouns declined according to the mixed declension look like strong nouns in the singular (with genitive in-sand/or-es) but weak nouns in the plural (with plural in-nand/or-en). Most mixed nouns were once weak nouns that have transitioned to strong nouns in the singular but maintain the original weak plural ending. SeeCategory:German mixed nounsfor a list of German mixed nouns.

monolectic

Used of a grammatical form accomplished with one word (cf.polylecticandperiphrastic).

monosyllable

A word consisting of only onesyllable.

mood

One of the forms of averb,used to indicate the speaker's attitude toward what they are saying (e.g. a statement of fact, of desire, of command, etc.). Examples includeindicative,subjunctive,imperative,conditional.

morpheme

Thesmallestlinguistic unitwithin awordthat cancarryameaning.

morphological

Inlinguistics,the study of words and how they are formed from component parts (morphemes). It also refers to the structure of the words themselves. Some languages lean more heavily on morphology to carry grammatical distinctions, while others rely more onsyntax.Compare EnglishI make,I will make,it is made(using syntax to encodeperson,tenseandvoicedistinctions) vs. Latinfaciō,facem,facitur(using morphology).

mpl,m. pl.

Masculineplural.

mutation

The property of a sound in a word, often aconsonantbut possibly avowel(as inablautandumlaut), altering due to itsmorphologicalorsyntactic,as opposed tophonological,context. Examples of consonant mutations include the word-initial consonant mutations found in many Celtic languages.

mute h

In French, an initial <h> that is treated like avowel;that is to say,liaisonandelisionare permitted at the beginning of words that have a mute h.

N

n

Seeneuter.

n

Seenoun.

narrowly

Indicates a more precise use of words; short fornarrowly speaking.For most practical purposes, synonymous withstrictly.Contrastloose(broad) senses.

nasal infix

Theinfix*-né-or-n-inProto-Indo-European,one of the affixes marking theimperfectiveaspect. It appears in several of theIndo-European languages:for instance, Latinvincit(“wins”),vīcit(“has won”);Ancient Greekλαμβάνω(lambánō,“I take”),ἔλᾰβον(élabon,“I took”).

negative polarity item

A term or construction that is generally found only in negative sentences, questions, conditionals, and certain other “negative polarity” contexts; for example,anyoneis a negative polarity item, as one can say "I did not see anyone", "Did you see anyone?" and "If anyone wants this, speak up now", but not * "I saw anyone." Several expressions have similar properties, such asbudge an inch:"I won't budge an inch" and "Will he even budge an inch?", but not normally * "He budged an inch in the negotiations." See alsopositive polarity item.

negative verb

Anauxiliary verbused to form negatives of verbs in some languages. See alsoconnegative.

neologism

In general usage, a neologism refers to any newly coined term or meaning. For more information on the term's use in Wiktionary, seeWiktionary:Neologisms.

neuter,n

Of neutergender:having a form which is notmasculinenorfeminine;or having a form which is not ofcommon gender.

nominal

Related tonouns.See alsodenominal.

As a noun, it refers to anypart of speechthat is noun-like in some way, and normally includesnounsthemselves along withadjectives,pronounsanddeterminers.Theinflectionof nominals is commonly calleddeclension.

nominative case

Acasethat is usually used as thesubjectof averb.For example, if English had a fullyproductivecase system, then (the)manin "The man threw the ball" would most likely be in the nominative case.

nominalizationorsubstantivization

The use of a word which is not anoun(e.g. averboradjective) as a noun.

nonce word

A word invented for the occasion.

nonfinite,non-finite

Of a verb – lacking grammaticalpersonandnumberattributes; most nonfinite verbs found in English areinfinitives,participlesandgerunds.

non-past tense

Thetenseof averbthat does not pertain to thepast;in particular, applicable to both thepresentand thefuture.Common in some languages, such as Arabic. In English, the main verb in the sentencesI am running tomorrowandI am running nowcan be said to be in the non-past tense, since the same verb can be used to express both the present and the future.

nonstandard

Not conforming to the language as accepted by the majority of its speakers; frequently considered incorrect.

nonvirile

In Slavic languages, a pluralgenderused for all groups that do not contain men, as well as plurals ofmasculineanimate, masculine inanimate,feminineandneuternouns. Contrastvirile.

not comparable

Seeincomparable.

noun

A word that refers to a person (such as anactress), a place, a physical thing (such aswood), or concept (such asbeauty,joy,ortime). See alsocountable,uncountableandplural.

noun class

In some languages (especially theBantulanguages), a way of classifying nouns much likegender,but determined by other considerations such as the type and shape of an object, whether it isanimateorinanimate,a person or non-person, and so on.

noun clause

A type ofdependent clausethat takes the place of nouns. Examples areI saidthat my name is Johnas well asI suggestedthat he leaveandThat the color of the sky on Mars is pinking-redis surprising to me.Noun clauses can also benonfinite(i.e. with the verb in the form of aninfinitive), as inI askedhim to leave(compare thesynonymousI askedthat he leave,expressed using afiniteverb).

number,grammatical number

A grammatical category that indicates how many items or individuals. Examples aresingular,pluralanddual.

numeronym

Anumber-basedwordsuch as9/11and24/7.

O

object

The entity that is acted upon by averb.For example, in the sentenceTom studies grammar,the wordgrammaris the object. Contrastsubject.

→direct object,indirect object

oblique case,objective case

Any case that is neithernominativenorvocative.The term is therefore often plural ( "the oblique cases" ); but in some languages, such asHindustaniandOld French,the oblique is a particular case form, used for example (in Old French) for thedirect objectand with prepositions.

obsolete,obs.

No longer in use, and (of a term) no longer likely to be understood.Obsoleteis a stronger term thanarchaic,and a much stronger term thandated.SeeWiktionary:Obsolete and archaic terms.Distinguish: an obsolete term is no longer in use, while the thing it once referred to may or may not exist; a historical term is still in use, but refers to a thing which no longer exists.

OED

Oxford English Dictionary.AlsoSOED(Shorter),OED1(1st edition),OED2(2nd edition),NOED(New).

offensive

Language that is intended or likely to cause offense; a kind ofimpolitelanguage.

onomatopoeia

A word that is meant to sound like what it represents (with similarity more or lessfancifulornotional). English examples arekaboom,cuckoo,tweetandding dong.Onomatopoeia is one way of beingimitative.

optative mood

A category of verb form (amood) that expresses wishes along with other meanings. Such a category occurs in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit.

orthographicborrowing

Aloanwordthat has been borrowed in its written form and re-pronounced according to the conventions of the target language, particularly in East Asian languages written with Chinese characters. For example, the Chinese nameMao trạch đông(Máo Zédōng)is rendered in Japanese asMao trạch đông(Mō Takutō):the spelling is the same, but the characters have been pronounced as if they were Japanese words, leading to a significantly different pronunciation. Sometimes, the pronunciations in the source and donor language have no etymological relationship. For example, the Japanese nounDiệp(は)Thư(がき)(hagaki,“postcard”)was orthographically borrowed into Korean as엽서(Diệp thư,yeopseo,“postcard” ); another example is that the Japanese verbThủ(と)りTiêu(け)す(torikesu,“cancel”)was orthographically borrowed into Chinese asThủ tiêu(qǔxiāo, “cancel”),and also into Korean as취소(Thủ tiêu,chwiso,“cancel” ).

outdated

seedated

oxytone

With the stress upon the final syllable (e.g.εθνικός(ethnikós)). Compare withparoxytone,proparoxytone,andbarytone.

P

p.

postor after, often used in quotations. Hence, a quotation from "p. 1924" is a quotation from no earlier than 1924.

Seeplural.

palatalization

1. The state or quality of beingpalatalized,i.e. of pronouncing a sound with the tongue against thepalateof the mouth that normally is not so pronounced. Some languages, such asRussianandIrish,have pairs of palatalized and unpalatalizedconsonantphonemes.
2. Asound changethat involves a change of consonants to become palatalized or move in the direction of the palate; one of the most common of sound changes, and usually triggered by a following/e/,/i/or/j/.In English, palatalization (known asyod-coalescence) converted/t//d//s//z/to/t͡ʃ//d͡ʒ//ʃ//ʒ/before a/j/(which was later lost), resulting in the sounds found innature,procedure,pressure,measure,where the spelling still indicates the sound as it was prior to palatalization. Palatalization still operatessynchronicallybefore a/j/,producing, for instance, the pronunciationsgotchaanddidjafromgotyouanddidyou.

palindrome

A word, phrase, number or any othersequenceof units which has the property of reading the sameforwardsas it doesbackwards,character for character, sometimes disregarding punctuation,capitalizationanddiacritics.

paradigm

A set of all forms which contain a common element, especially the set of allinflectionalforms of a word or a particular grammatical category.

paragoge

The addition of sounds at the end of a word without changing its morphological structure or meaning.

parisyllabic

A word whose inflections contain the same number of syllables as the lemma form (cf.imparisyllabic).

paroxytone

With the stress upon thepenultimate(second to last) syllable (e.g.εθνολόγος(ethnológos)). (Compare withoxytone,proparoxytoneandbarytone.)

part of speech,POS, PoS

The category that a word belongs to, with respect to how it's used as part of phrases and sentences. Examples arenouns,adjectivesandverbs.The part of speech is inherent in the word itself, and is independent of any specific role that the word may have within any given sentence (e.g. subject,direct object). Words may belong to more than one part of speech: Englishthisis both adeterminerand apronoun,whilecoatis both a noun and a verb.

partial calque

A term which is only in part acalqueorloan translation,such that some parts have been translated word-for-word and other parts have beenborroweddirectly. For example, the English termliverwurstis a partial calque of GermanLeberwurst;the first partLeber(“liver”)was translated, but the second partWurst(“sausage”)was borrowed without translation. A partial calque is also known as aloanblend.

participle

A form of averbthat may function as anadjectiveornoun.Englishhas two types of participles: thepresentparticiple and thepastparticiple. In other languages, alsofuture,perfect,future perfectparticiples.

particle

A word that does not fall into the usualpart of speechcategories, but which modifies another word or the sentence as a whole. The English termlikeis used as a particle in many dialects. Particles are more common in other Indo-European languages (e.g. Germandoch,which marks a sentence as being surprising or rebutting a previous statement) and in East Asian languages (e.g. Japaneseは,which marks the topic of a sentence). Manycliticsare particles.

partitive

Indicating partialness or indeterminateness, such as "some water" or "something nice". In Dutch, it is a word form that is used when referring to undetermined things or amounts (example:iets interessants= "something interesting" ). French has special partitivearticleswhich qualify indefinitemass nouns(example:J'aiducafécan be translated as either "I havesomecoffee "or simply" I have coffee ").

partitive case

Acasethat expresses a partial object or an action that is not performed to completion.

passive voice

thevoiceverb form in which the subject is not the person or thing doing the action, and is usually having the action done on them (cf.active voice), e.g.the ball was kicked (by the boy).(See alsovoice)

past tense

Thetenseof averbused to refer to an event, transaction, or occurrence that did happen or has happened, or an object that existed, at a point in time before now. An English example issawinI saw my friend yesterday.

past historic

Atensefound primarily in writing in some languages, especially certainRomance languages.It has the same meaning as thepreteritebut is used particularly innarrative.

past perfect

Same aspluperfect.

pejorative(orderogatory)

A word form expressing a negative or belittling attitude towards the person or thing referred to. Compare Englishartsy-fartsywith the neutral equivalentartistic.Some languages have specific prefixes or suffixes for expressing a pejorative attitude, e.g. Spanish-ucho/-achoor Englishschm-.

penultima

The next-to-lastsyllableof a word.

perfect

Theaspectof a verb indicating that the action described is completed. In English, it consists of the verbhave+ the past participle, e.g.Tom has painted the fenceorTom has taken medicine.Depending on the tense ofhaveone can have present perfect, which are represented in the previous examples, or past perfect:Tom had painted the fence,Tom had taken medicine.To have paintedis a perfect infinitive. See alsoImperfect.Not to be confused withperfective.

perfective

Theaspectof a verb that denotes viewing the event the verb describes as a simple whole rather than as having internal structure. For example, "she sat down" as opposed to "she was sitting down". As this may often lead to an interpretation of completeness of what is expressed by the verb, this aspect is generally associated with the past and future tenses. Common inSlavic languagessuch asRussian.This term is often used interchangeably withaoristaspect.Not to be confused withperfect.Contrastimperfective.

periphrastic

Using more words to produce a grammatical effect. For example, "more fair" is aperiphrasticform of "fairer". The English future tense requiresperiphrasticusage: "Iwill writean essay. "(Cf.monolecticandpolylectic.)

person,grammatical person

A grammatical category that indicates the relationship between the speaker and what is being spoken of. Examples arefirst person,second personandthird person.

phoneme

An indivisible unit of sound in a given language, an abstraction of the physical speech sounds.

phono-semantic compound

A Chinese character (CJKVcharacter) composed of a component which is related to the meaning of the character and another component which is related to the sound of the character, example: the characterMụ／Mụ(mā,literally “mother” ) (OC*maːʔ) is a phono-semantic compound made up of the semanticNữ(literally “female” ) (on the left-hand side ofMụ ／ mụ) and the phoneticMã／Mã(mǎ) (OC *mraːʔ) (on the right-hand side ofMụ ／ mụ).

phono-semantic matching

A wordborrowedinto one language from another in a way that completely or partially preserves both the original sound and meaning. Phono-semantic matchings are especially common in Mandarin Chinese; examples areKhả khẩu khả nhạc／Khả khẩu khả nhạc(Kěkǒu kělè,“Coca-Cola”, literally “tasty [and] entertaining” ) andVạn duy võng／Vạn duy võng(wàn wéi wǎng,“world wide web”, literally “myriad dimensional net” ).

phrase

1. A word or group of words that functions as a single unit in thesyntaxof asentence,usually consisting of ahead,or central word, and elaborating words. Examples arethe good boy(anounphrase),very strange(anadjectivephrase), andin the house(aprepositionalphrase). Normally distinguished from aclause,a similar group of words that contains averb.
2. Same asset phrase.

piecewisedoublet

One of two (or more) derived words in a language that consist of components that all have the sameetymologicalroots, but which have entered the language at different points in time; in other words, one of two (or more) words that can be split into individual components and all of those components aredoubletsof the equivalent components of the other words.

pl.

Seeplural.

plosive

Aconsonantsound produced by completely blocking the airflow through the mouth for a short time. In English, the plosives arevoiceless/p/,/t/,/k/(as in the initial sounds ofpea,tea,key) and the correspondingvoicedsounds/b/,/d/,/ɡ/(as in the initial sounds ofbuy,die,guy). Plosives are distinguished fromfricatives,in which the air is mostly but not completely blocked, enough to cause a rough, hissing or buzzing sound, andapproximants,in which the airflow is only slightly constricted, resulting in a smooth sound.

pluperfect

A verb form ofperfectaspectandpasttense,which is used to describe an action or event which is regarded as having been completed in the past, in relation to a time already in the past. E.g.Tom had painted the fence before I got there.

plural,plural number, pl., p.

Agrammatical numberthat indicates multiple items or individuals. Most languages contrast it withsingular,and plural indicates two or more. Some languages also possess thedualor eventrialnumbers; in these instances the plural indicates more than the highest specific number.

plurale tantum(plural = pluralia tantum)

Same as plural only (see below).

pluralonly

A noun (or a sense of a noun) that is inherently plural and is not used (or is not used in the same sense) in the singular, such aspantsin the senses of "trousers" and "underpants", orwheelsin the sense of "car", isplural onlyoraplurale tantum.In practice, most pluralia tantum are found in the singular in rare cases. (SeeCategory:English pluralia tantum.) Contrast words which aresingularonly(singularia tantum).

poetic

Language, commonly associated with poetry, that is typically chosen to have an artistic or cultural impact on the listener.

polite

Language that isrespectful,complaisant,and (in some cases)deferent.Many languages haveinflectionsandpronounsdedicated specifically to forms that are politer than theirfamiliarcounterparts.

polylectic

Used of a grammatical form accomplished with more than one word (cf.monolecticandperiphrastic).

portmanteau

Ablendthat combines meanings.

POS, PoS

Seepart of speech.

positive

The 'normal' form of thedegrees of comparisonof an adjective or adverb. Thusbigis thepositiveform of the triobig,bigger,biggest.

positive polarity item

A term or construction that is generally found only in affirmative sentences, questions, conditionals, and certain other “positive polarity” contexts. See alsonegative polarity item.

possessional adjective

An adjective indicating that a noun is in possession of some other noun (or a quality of that noun), commonly formed in English by adding the suffix-ed,-ful,-y,-ous,-able,-ual,-ish,-ar,-esqueor-like.For example, an animal isbushy-tailedif it is in possession of a bushy tail, a person filled with disdain isdisdainful,and a garden isleafyif there are many leaves on the plants there. Commonlyidiomatic,such as inpinheadedorred-faced.Not to be confused withpossessive adjectives,which indicate who possesses a noun, orrelational adjectives,which are often formed in the same way. See alsoprivative adjectives,which denote the opposite.

possessive determiner(or possessive adjective)

Adeterminerthat indicates ownership. For example, in "her book", the word "her" indicates whose book it is. Not to be confused withpossessional adjectives,which indicate what a noun possesses.

postpositive

Placed after the word modified.

preconsonantal

Immediately preceding aconsonantor consonant sound.

predicate

The part of asentencethat follows thesubject.This generally consists of theverband anyobjects.It can also consist of alinking verb(e.g. "to be", "to seem", etc.) and a followingadjective,which is termed apredicate adjectiveorpredicative adjective(contrasted with anattributiveadjective,which directly modifies anoun). An example would begoodinThe food is good.Some languages, such asGermanandRussian,have a special declension for predicate adjectives.

predicative

Describes a term that acts as thepredicateor part of the predicate of asentence(e.g. apredicativeadjective,such asgoodinThe food is good). Some adjectives are only-predicative likeafraidorgladin English.―InRussian,it often specifically refers to an adjective-likepart of speechthat serves as the entire predicate of a sentence in animpersonalconstruction. Such constructions often cannot be translated word-for-word in English. An example isску́чно(skúčno,“it isboring”)in the sentenceмнеску́чно(mne skúčno,“I ambored”,literally“It is boringtome”).

prefix

Amorphemeadded to the beginning of a word to modify its meaning.

preposition

A word, normally non-inflecting,that is typically employed to connect a followingnounorpronoun,in anadjectivaloradverbialsense, with some other word. Examples of prepositions in English arein,fromandduring.Note that some languages havepostpositionsinstead of prepositions; they function like prepositions but comeafterthe noun or pronoun being connected.

prepositional case

Acaseused in certain languages, especiallyRussian,after certainprepositions.InRussian,it corresponds to thelocative casein otherSlavic languages.

prescriptive

Concerninglinguistic prescription:how some users of a language think it ought to be used, as contrasted with how it is in fact used, which is sometimes different; comparedescriptive.

present tense

Thetenseof averbused primarily to refer to an event, transaction, or occurrence happening now or at the present time. The verbseeinI see my friend in the windowis in the present tense. In many languages, including English, the present tense may also be used to refer to past or future events in certain contexts:My plane leaves tomorrow morning(whereleaveis a present verb that refers to the future), or:John Lennon dies of gunshot wounds(as in a headline, wherediesis a present verb that refers to the past; seehistorical present). While such uses are somewhat exceptional in English, the present tense is used much more widely in many languages. For example, the German present tense also covers some or most of the uses of the English future (I will do) and present perfect (I have done).

preterite(also spelledpreterit)

Atenseshowing an action at a determined moment in the past. In general it is thus the union of thepast tensewith theperfectiveaspect, although in some languages it is little more than a synonym for past tense.

preterite-present verb

InGermaniclanguages, a verb that displays (or historically displayed)ablautin the present tense, and thereby hadpresenttense forms resembling thepast(orpreterite) tense of astrong verb.Most languages have no more than a handful of such verbs, and they are often used asauxiliary verbs.English examples areshall,can,may.Contraststrong verb,weak verb.

prevocalic

Occurring before a following vowel.

privative adjective

1. An adjective indicating that a noun refers to an object that is not of the class which that noun ordinarily refers to. For example, in the term "fake weapon", the word "fake" denotes that the object is not a weapon, just as the word "toy" in "toy car" denotes that it is not a car.
2. An adjective indicating that a noun lacks some other noun (or a quality of that noun), usually formed in English by adding the suffix-lessor-freeto the noun that is absent. For example, someone isbeardlessif they don't have a beard, while a coffee might besugar-freeif it contains no sugar. Commonlyidiomatic,such as inbrainlessorheartless.See alsopossessional adjectives,which denote the opposite.

productive

Used to form new words and phrases. For example, when a new verb appears in Modern English, the productive suffix-edis used to form its past participle; by contrast, the suffix-enappears in many existing past participles, but is not productive, in that it is not (usually) used to form new ones.

progressive

Theaspectof a verb, indicating that the action described is, was or will be continuing, uncompleted or repeated. A verb form indicating that an action isin progress.In English, formed from a combination ofbe+ the present participle (-ingform) of the verb. So one can have present progressive (e.g.ispainting), past progressive (e.g.waspainting), future progressive (e.g.will bepainting), etc. Similar to, but less general than, theimperfectiveaspect.(See alsocontinuous.)

pronominal verb

A form ofverbthat has an attachedpronoun;this is a prominent feature ofRomanceand Slavic languages. The verb–pronoun combination can havereflexive,reciprocal,passive,subjectiveoridiomaticsemantics.

pronoun

Apart of speechthat acts as a substitute for anounornoun phraseand refers to a topic of the discussion. Pronouns can refer to a participant in the discussion and can be used instead of a person's name, such as with the pronounsIandyou.Other pronouns, such ashe,she,andit,can be used to refer to other people or objects that have already been mentioned without repeating their names.

pronunciation spelling

A deliberate misspelling used in writing, typically to indicate the speech of a particular dialect, even if the speaker may have perfect spelling. As such, it is the functional opposite ofeye dialect.

proparoxytone

With the stress upon theantepenultimate(third to last) syllable (e.g.εθνικότητα(ethnikótita)). (Compare withoxytone,paroxytone,andbarytone.)

proper noun

A kind ofnounthat usually refers to a specific, unique thing, such asEarthandthe Alps,though one language's proper noun may translate to another language using acommon(not proper) noun. In English, proper nouns are usually capitalized, as are common nouns and adjectives derived from proper nouns. The same word may have both common-noun and proper-noun senses (such asGerman,which is both a proper noun denoting a certain language, and a common noun denoting a person from Germany), and most proper nouns can sometimes be used as common nouns – e.g.Johnis a proper noun that is a first name, but can be used a common noun with pluralJohnsmeaning "people named John".

proscribed

Some authorities or commentators recommend or warn against the listed usage.

prothesis

The prepending ofphonemesat the beginning of a word without changing its morphological structure, as innother,fromother( “a whole nother thing” ), or Spanishesferafrom Latinsphaera(“sphere”).

protologism

Aneologismor any coined word with very limited use. By definition, protologisms do not meet Wiktionary'scriteria for inclusion,but some are recorded atAppendix:Protologisms.

proverb

Aphraseexpressing a basic truth which may be applied to common situations.

pseudo-acronym

A word that has the form of anacronymorinitialismbut no longer stands for anything.

pseudo-anglicism

A word in a non-English language that is formed from English elements and may appear to be English, but that does not exist as an English word with the same meaning, such asFlipper(“pinball machine”),サラリーマン(sararīman,“white-collar worker”,literally“salary-man”)andafterwork(“informal gathering after work”).

pseudo-loan

A word in one language that appears to be a direct borrowing from another language, but does not exist in that language or has an unrelated meaning. Examples are Frenchfooting(“jogging”),GermanBodybag(“messenger bag, courier bag”),Japaneseサラリーマン(sararīman,“white-collar worker, 'salaryman'”)and Swedishafterwork(“informal gathering after work”).Depending on the source language, more specific terms may be in use, e.g.pseudo-anglicismfor pseudo-loans from English;wasei-eigospecifically for Japanese-language pseudo-loans from English;pseudo-Latinismfor pseudo-loans from Latin (cf.hocus pocus,noli illegitimi carborundum);pseudo-Hispanismfor pseudo-loans from Spanish (cf.no problemo,que sera sera);pseudo-Gallicismfor pseudo-loans from French (cf.vive la différence,nom de plume,triple entendre);pseudo-Germanism(from German),pseudo-Japonism(from Japanese),pseudo-Arabism(from Arabic),pseudo-Italianism(from Italian), etc.

Q

quantifier

A word that specifies the amount of its related noun, such asall,no,many,several,eight,half,etc.

R

rare

A term or sense that is attested but not used commonly either in spoken or written language, even less so thanuncommonterms. A rare term or sense is typically difficult to find even when deliberately searching for it, and may be attested only a handful of times in accessiblecorpora.

reanalysis

Analysis of alexemewith a different structure from its original, often by misunderstanding. For example,hamburger,which is originallyHamburg+-er,was reanalyzed asham+-burger,which produced words likecheeseburger.

rebracketing

The process by which a word originally derived from one source is broken down or bracketed into a different set of factors. The understanding ofhamburgerasham+burger(rather thanHamburg+-er) is an example of rebracketing. Also calledmetanalysis.

reciprocal

Used to indicate that subjects have other subjects as object. Pronouns can be reciprocal (in Englisheach other), as well as verbsreciprocalquality aslexemes.

reconstruction

A word that is not recorded in actual texts or other media, but has been recreated from its descendant forms, using thecomparative methodof linguistics.

reducible

In theSlavic languages,a word (especially a noun or adjective) with an alternation between a vowel and no vowel in different forms of the word, pursuant toHavlík’s law.In Russian, for example, the reducible masculine nounвене́ц(venéc,“crown”)appears unreduced (with /e/ in the final syllable) in the masculine singular, and reduced (with no /e/) in other forms, e.g. genitive singularвенца́(vencá),nominative pluralвенцы́(vencý).

reduplication

The repetition of a word or a part of a word (as few as twophonemesin a word, or the whole sequence of phonemes in the word) with no or slight change. Comparehaplology,theelisionof a repeated part of a word.

reflex

The name given to a descendant word in adaughter language,descended from an earlier language. For example, Modern Englishheatis the reflex of the Old Englishhǣtu.

Rarely, this word is used in reverse, and the 'reflex' is actually the root word rather than the descendant word. However, this usage is usually filled by the termetymoninstead.

reflexive

Referring back to the subject, or having an object equal to the subject. Pronouns can be reflexive (e.g.myself,oneself).Romanceand Slavic languages make extensive use of reflexive verb forms (e.g.Italianlavarsi,Spanishlavarse(“to wash oneself”)). These are part of a larger group ofpronominal verbs.

register

A variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. Encompasses variants such asslang,colloquial,informal,formal,etc.

related terms

Words in the same language that have strong etymological connections but arenotderived terms.

relational

Refers to a type of adjective in some languages, e.g.Latin,Ancient Greekand theSlavic languages,that takes the place of a noun when it modifies another noun. Consider an English phrase such aschicken soup.In English, this phrase can be constructed by simply placing a noun such aschickenin the position normally occupied by an adjective, i.e. directly before the noun. In languages such asRussian,however, this cannot be done, and instead the wordку́рица(kúrica,“chicken”)must be replaced by the relational adjectiveкури́ный(kurínyj,“related to chickens”)when forming the Russian equivalentкури́ныйсуп(kurínyj sup,“chicken soup”).Generally, adjectives of this sort cannot be qualified bymore,lessorvery.This concept relates to the concept of thenoun adjunct.

relative

1. Marking arelative clause.Often used of pronouns, such asthe treewhich....
2. In theBantu languages,apart of speechthat resembles anadjectivein function, but behaves morphologically and syntactically like arelative clause.

relative clause

Asubordinate clausethat modifies anoun.InThe man who I saw yesterday is leaving today,the clausewho I saw yesterdayis a relative clause. In English, relative clauses are often introduced by arelativepronounsuch aswho,whichorthat,but other languages often have different strategies for marking relative clauses.

respelling

A different spelling of a word, especially to show its pronunciation.

retronym

A new word or phrase coined for an old object or concept whose original name has become used for something else or is no longer unique (such as acoustic guitar where guitar used to mean this but can now also refer to an electric guitar).

rhetoric

1. The art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing.
2. A string of words that are designed to impress or confuse, rather than communicate. (See alsoAppendix:Glossary of rhetoric.)

rhetorical question

A question to which the speaker does not expect an answer

rhotacism,rhotacization

1. Asound changethat converts one consonant (usually a voiced alveolar consonant: /z/, /d/, /l/, or /n/) to arhoticconsonant in a certain environment, most commonly /z/ to /r/.
2. The opposite process: changing /r/ to /z/, or to a different consonant, orelision.

Romanization,Romanisation

Transliterationof a string in a non-Latin script into the Latin or Roman one: for instance,συγγνώμηcan be romanized assingnómi.

root

The part of a word that forms its core and gives its most basic meaning; also the part of the word that is left when allaffixesare removed. For example, ininsubordination,the root isord,while inunspeakablenessit isspeak.The root is often the first part of the word (as inUralicand often inIndo-Europeanlanguages), but it may also be the last part, or it may only consist of the consonants of the word (as in theAfroasiaticlanguages).

rustic

Describes a word as part of 'rural' speech. Different toarchaicorcolloquial.

S

s

Seesingular.

SAMPA

SAMPA(Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet), a set of systems for representing the phonemes of various languages in plainASCIItext. Not to be confused withX–SAMPA,the system for representing thefullInternational Phonetic Alphabet in plain ASCII text.

script

A writing system adapted to a particular language or set of languages.

second person,2nd person

Agrammatical personthat indicates the person or group to whom one is speaking. Examples are the English pronounsyouandthou.

second-person-object form

A type of conjugation inHungarian(aside fromdefiniteandindefinite) which indicates a first-person singular subject and a second-person (whether singular or plural, but informally addressed) object, for exampleszeretlek(“Iloveyou”)orlátlak(“Iseeyou”).

semantic loan

A word or expression created byborrowinga meaning from another language and assigning it to a word or expression which is already considered to have an idiomatic meaning in the borrowing language. Also called semantic calque. For example, the French wordsouris(literally“mouse”)was given the additional meaningcomputermousein imitation of Englishmouse,which already had both meanings. Semantic loans are distinguished fromcalquesin that calques are not considered to have a pre-existing idiomatic meaning at the time that they are coined.

semantic shift

A usually significant change in the meaning of a word over time, either within the same language or when the word is derived from another language. For example, Latinēgregius(literally“standing out from the flock”),meaning “distinguished, outstanding, excellent” is the source of Englishegregious,which shifted semantically into meaning “outstandingly bad, shocking”.

semanticnarrowing

A type of semantic shift in which the meaning changes from general to specific.

semanticbroadening

A type of semantic shift in which the meaning changes from specific to general.

semelfactive

A verbalaspect,a subclass ofperfective,which denotes amomentaryorpunctualevent (e.g. tosneeze,toblink,toknock). InSlavic languagessuch asRussian,often used to express actions performed once.

semi-learned borrowing

Aloanwordthat was borrowed from aclassical languagesuch as Latin or Sanskrit (especially when borrowed into a descendant of the same language), which has been partly reshaped by latersound changeor analogy with inherited terms. Opposed tolearned borrowings,which have not been similarly reshaped, andinheritedterms, which have undergone all the normal sound changes of a language. For example, the Portuguese termartigo(“article”)is a semi-learned borrowing fromLatinarticulus(“joint, limb, division”),which was borrowed early enough to undergo later sound changes thatlenitedcintogand deletedlbetween vowels, but did not undergo earlier sound changes, such as lowering shortitoe.In comparison,artelho(“toe”)is inherited from the same Latin term, andartículo(“articulus”)is a learned borrowing from the same Latin term.

semivowel

A sound which has some qualities of aconsonantand some qualities of avowel.

sentence

A syntactic unit that expresses a complete thought and consists of one or moreclausesjoined together.

sentence adverb

An adverb that modifies an entire clause or sentence rather than a single word or phrase.

set phrase

Set phrase,a commonexpression(aphrase) whosewordingis not subject tovariation,or alternately, whose words cannot be replaced bysynonymouswords withoutcompromisingthe meaning. Set phrases may includeidioms,proverbs,andcolloquialisms.For example,flight simulatoris a set phrase because it has a special meaning thatflying simulatordoesn't.

sg.

Seesingular.

SGV

Seesingulative.

shortening

A shortened form of a word(s), includingabbreviations,acronyms,contractions,initialisms,short forms.

short form

A shortened term which is itself a stand-alone term; e.g.Acts,a short form used to refer toActs of the Apostles.

sic

A Latin adverb meaning "thus, so". It is traditionally placed inside square brackets and used in quotations to indicate that the preceding is not a copying error, but is in fact a verbatim reflection of the source. (For example, if a source contains a typographical error, someone quoting the source might add [sic] to make clear that the error was in the original source.)

siglum(pl. sigla)

A letter or other symbol that stands for a word or name; e.g.ꝓis a medieval Latin siglum for the wordpro.

simile

Afigure of speechin which one thing is compared to another; in English, it generally useslikeoras;seemetaphorandfigurative.

simplex

A simple word, one withoutaffixes.

singular,singular number, sg., s

Agrammatical numberthat indicates exactly one item or individual. Usually contrasts withplural,and, in some languages, withdual.

singulare tantum(plural = singularia tantum)

Same as singular only (see below).

singularonly

A noun (in any specific sense) that has no plural form and is only used with singular verbs. Frequently for mass nouns. Contrast words which arepluralonly(pluralia tantum).

singulative,singulative number, SGV

The marked singular form of an unmarkedmass noun.

Sino-Xenic

Refers to pronunciations inJapanese,KoreanandVietnameselanguages (grouped with Chinese asCJKV) of terms or components derived from medievalChinese.

s.l.

Latinsinelocō(literally“without a place”),used to indicate that the place of publication is not stated in a work.

slang

Denotes language that is unique to a particular profession or subject, i.e.jargon.Also refers to the specialized language of a social group, sometimes used to make what is said unintelligible to those who are not members of the group, i.e.cant.Such language is usually outside of conventional usage, and is mostly inappropriate informalcontexts.

Slavic first palatalization

A specific occurrence ofpalatalizationthat occurred in theProto-Slavic language,in which thevelarconsonants*k *g *xwhen followed by any of thefront vowels*e *ě *ь *ibecame the sounds*č *ž *š,respectively. The Slavic first palatalization is still an active process in many modernSlavic languages.For example, before certain suffixes inRussian,the consonantsк г х цbecomeч ж ш чrespectively. OtherSlavic languagesbehave similarly.

Slavic progressive palatalization

A specific occurrence ofpalatalizationthat occurred in theProto-Slavic language,in which thevelarconsonants*k *g *xwhen preceded by either of thefront vowels*ь *i(possibly with an interveningn) became the sounds*c dz s/š,respectively, withsoccurring in East and South Slavic butšoccurring in West Slavic.

s.n.

Latinsinenōmine(literally“without a name”),used to indicate that the name of the publisher is not stated in a work.

snowclone

A type ofclichéwhich uses an oldidiomformulaically in a new context. (See alsoAppendix:English snowclones)

solemn

Used to evoke a sense of current events being highly important. Examples of situations where solemn language is likely to be used are liturgical events, various ceremonies, and public speeches. Solemn terms are often dated or archaic, and once belonged in the neutral register.

sound change

A change in the pronunciation of a sound in a given language, usually according to regular rules. An example of such a change in English is the deletion ofhin the/hw/cluster found in words such aswhichandwhale,making themhomophonouswithwitchandwail,respectively. (This sound change is found in most varieties of English, but not in Scottish English or in some conservative American English and Irish English varieties. SeePronunciation of English ⟨wh⟩.)

sound symbolism

The idea thatphonemesor clusters of phonemes carry intrinsic meaning in a language. For example, the phoneme clustergl-appears to mean "light" in English in words such asgleam,glisten,glare,glossyandglow.(See alsophonesthemeon Wikipedia.Wikipedia)

spelling pronunciation

A pronunciation affected by the written form of the word, diverging from the original inherited form. Some spelling pronunciation are considered mistakes or non-standard, while others have historically become universally accepted and completely replaced the original pronunciations.

stative

Of a verb: expressing astaterather than anactionoractivity.Many Bantu languages have a verbal extension/suffix to derive stative verbs from other verbs, often withinchoativeorpotentialmeaning.

stem

The part of aninflectedword that the ending is attached to. For example, Latinmens-(stem, "table" ) +-ae(ending, 1st-declension nominative plural) →mensae(full word, "tables", nominative plural).

stratum

A language that influences another bycontact,typically due to close geographic proximity (often both spoken simultaneously in the same land) and some form of cultural contact. A stratum can be further classified assubstrate,superstrate,or adstrate.

strictly

Indicates a more precise use of words; short forstrictly speaking(sensu stricto). Contrastlooseorbroad(wide) sense;loosely.

strong declension

In German, a declension of adjectives, and of masculine and neuter nouns, that is defined in opposition to theweak declensionandmixed declension.Strong nouns (typically) form their genitive in-sand/or-esand do not form their plural by adding-nand/or-en.In adjectives, the strong declension is a set of endings used when the adjective is not accompanied by a definite or indefinite article, and includes a fuller set of endings than that of the weak or mixed declensions (hence the name). Note that "strong", "weak" and "mixed" refer to inherent declensional properties of nouns, but all adjectives can be declined according to all three declensions, depending on whether an article precedes and what type of article it is. By analogy, the term "strong declension" is sometimes used in other inflected Germanic languages such asIcelandicandOld English.In these languages, adjectives are formed similarly to German but there is typically not a single strong noun declension. Rather, a strong noun is any noun that does not follow the weak declension.

strong pronoun

(Greek) Anemphatic pronoun.

strong verband strong conjugation

InGermaniclanguages, a verb that displaysablaut.More specifically, a verb that has a change invowelbetween present and past. An English example isdrink,drank,drunk.Note that some verbs show a vowel change, but not as a result of ablaut (e.g.think,thought); these are not considered strong verbs. Contrastweak verb,preterite-present verb.

subject

In aclause:the word or word group (usually a noun phrase) that is dealt with. Inactive clauseswithverbsdenoting an action, the subject and the actor are usually the same. Contrastobject.

subjunctive mood

Themoodof averbexpressing an action or state which ishypotheticaloranticipatedrather than actual, includingwishesandcounterfactuals.Some English examples areif Iwererichandit’s important that hebehere.In many languagesimperative(command)inflectionsare the same as or similar to subjunctive ones, reflecting the shared trait of non-indicativenature: yet-unrealizedideas.

subordinate clause

Same asdependent clause.

substantive

1. A noun or adjective (or phrase), that names a real object withsubstance.This is in contrast to anattributivenoun or adjective, which names a real object that carries theattributesof the named noun or adjective.
2. InMongoliclanguages, it sometimes refers to a singlepart of speechthat collectively encompasses nouns, adjectives and adverbs, due to their shared morphological behaviour.

substantivization

Seenominalization.

substratum

A languagestratumwhich has lower cultural or political prestige than the one which it influences. Many historicalsubstratelanguages have gone extinct without ever having been attested, and so they must be inferred from their influences on surviving or attested languages. One such example is thePre-Greeksubstratum.

suffix

Amorphemeadded to the end of a word to modify its meaning.

superlative

Aninflection,or different form, of acomparableadjective showing a relative quality, denoting "to the ultimate extent". (See alsocomparativeanddegrees of comparison.) In English, the superlative form is often formed by appending-est,or using the wordmost.For example, the superlative ofbigis "biggest";ofconfident,"most confident".

superseded

Especially of a spelling, formerly standard, and still frequently encountered, but now deprecated in favor of another form as the result of a spelling reform. Examples in Portuguese:idéiainstead ofideia,freqüenteinstead offrequente,microondasinstead ofmicro-ondas,all replaced in the1990 Orthographic Agreement,which was fully implemented only by 2015.

superstratum

A languagestratumwhich has higher cultural or political prestige than the one which it influences. One historical example is thesuperstrateeffect ofOld NormanFrench on lateOld Englishin the centuries following the 11th-centuryNorman conquest of England.

supine

A term for aninfiniteverb form in some languages. In Latin, a type ofverbal noun,used for theablativeandaccusativecase of aninfinitive.In Swedish, a form related to thepast participle,used to formperfecttenses. In Slovene and Lower Sorbian, a form related to the infinitive, used to indicate purpose after a verb of movement.

suppletion,suppletive

The situation in which the inflected forms of a word come from two or more unrelated roots: for example,goandwent;be,is,andwas.One or more of these forms, or the entireparadigmof the word, may then be called suppletive. Examples from various languages may be found fromCategory:Suppletive verbs by language.

surface analysis,surface etymology

Theapparentetymology of a term by ananalysisbased on components occurring in the form of the language at a later point in time, i.e. that term'ssynchronicmakeup: for example, the analysisearth+-enforearthen,which actually was inherited via Middle English from Old English, in which it occurred aseorthen.

syllable

A unit of human speech that is interpreted by the listener as a single sound.

synchrony

The viewpoint of analysis of a language which considers only its state at one point (or period) in time, not accounting for historical language change or etymology (as opposed todiachrony). A purelysynchronicanalysis of a word or phrase (as e.g. from the intuition of a speaker of the language) which may differ from its true etymological derivation is termed asurface analysis.

syncope

The deletion or elision of sounds inside a word (not at the beginning or end), most often a singlevowel,but sometimes aconsonantor a sequence of vowels or consonants. Deletion at the beginning of a word is calledapheresis,at the endapocope.

syncretism

The situation in which two or moreinflectedforms of a word are identical. For example, Englishwalkedis both the simple past and the past participle ofwalk,and Ancient Greekἄλλο(állo)is the neuter nominative, accusative,and vocative singular ofἄλλος(állos).

synecdoche

Afigure of speechthat uses the name of a part of something to represent the whole, or the whole to represent a part; a kind ofmetonym.

synonym

A word or phrase with a meaning that is the same as, or very similar to, another word or phrase. Contrastantonym.

T

تَصْحِيف(taṣḥīf)

When a copyist has set wrong points (ʾiʿjām) upon the skeleton (rasm) of the (Arabic) script.

tatpurusa

Another term for adeterminativecompound.Contrastbahuvrihi,karmadharayaanddvandva.

tautology

Redundant use of words, apleonasm,an unnecessary and tedious repetition.

technical

(1) Specifically related to a particulardiscipline,either (a) exclusively so or (often) (b) with a somewhatstrictersense when used in that way; (2) Of or related totechnology.

telic

Theaspectof a verb that denotes an action with a definite endpoint or a goal that is tended towards, or rather an action that isquantized(such that the expression for that action may not describe both the action and a smaller part of that same action); contrastatelic.A kind of telicity distinction can be seen in English when specifying a duration in a (simple past) verb phrase: telic verb phrases takein(I built a houseinan hour.Did you just lose two keysinone day?)

tense

One of the forms of averb,used to distinguish when an action or state of being occurs or exists. The basic tenses in many languages arepresent,past,future.

thematicization

Insertionof athematic vowelon therootorstemof the word to make itundergoone of theproductivevocalicinflections.

third person,3rd person

Agrammatical personthat indicates someone or something that is neither the person or group to which the speaker belongs, nor the person or group that the speaker is speaking to. Examples are the English pronounshe,she,it,this,that,and so on. Allnounsare generally considered third person. In some languages (like German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Hungarian), the third-person conjugation is also used to express the formalyou(sometimes combined with the plural and/or capitalizing the personal pronoun in writing).

tmesis

The insertion of one or more words between the components of acompoundword.

tone

The pitch of a given syllable in languages where changing the pitch changes the basic meaning of the word. InMandarin Chinese,for example, the word pronounced /ma/ (like Englishma), when pronounced with a high, level tone means "mother", but when pronounced with a rising tone means "bother", and when pronounced with a falling tone means "scold".

toponym

A placename, or a word derived from one.

topicalizedform

In some languages, such as Okinawan, a topicalized form of a word is a contraction of that word, used as the phrasetopic,with the topic marker.

tr., tran., transl.

Translator or translated, often used in quotations.

transferred sense,transf.

A (usuallylooser) meaning of a word orphrasedeveloped from ametaphoricalapplication of its original signification (for example,hungerhas the primary and original sense “want of food”, “craving appetite”, whence developed the transferred sense of “any strong desire or craving” ).

transgressive

A verb form in some Balto-Slavic languages that expresses a coincidentally proceeding or following action.

transitive verb

A verb which requires one or moreobjects(e.g.Ikickthe ball); contrastintransitive verb.

translation hub

An English multi-word entry that is unidiomatic (sum of parts) and exists purely to host translations and enable navigation from one non-English entry to another non-English entry. An example:two days after tomorrow.SeeCategory:Translation hubsfor more.

transliteration

The conversion of text in onescriptinto an equivalent in anotherscript,or an instance of text so converted (for example,ŠevčenkoandShevchenkoare transliterations of UkrainianШевченкоfrom Cyrillic script to Latin script, according to two different systems). Transliteration is conducted on a letter-by-letter basis (contrasted withtranscriptionwhich is converted on the basis of sounds). This may be extended to the conversion ofdiacriticalmarks into alternate forms without diacritical marks in the same script (e.g. Mörder → Moerder).

transnumeral

Agrammatical numberthat is ambiguous as to whether it refers to thesingularorplural.Found inSino-Tibetanlanguages such asChineseandJapanese,as well as someAustronesianlanguages such asIndonesianandMalay.When a language also has a plural (or some other) number, they are commonly only used for clarity or emphasis.

troponym

A verb that indicates more precisely the manner of doing something by replacing a verb of a more generalized meaning, e.g. “to boil” for “to cook”.

twice-borrowed

Terms in one language that were borrowed from a second language that originally borrowed the term from the first language. (See alsoReborrowingon Wikipedia.Wikipedia)

U

UK

UK English, that is, the English of theUnited Kingdom.

umlaut

Asound changewhere avowelis modified to conform more closely to the vowel in the nextsyllable.Compareablaut.

unadaptedborrowing

Aloanwordthat has not been conformed to the morpho-syntactic, phonological and/or phonotactical rules of the target language. For example,Englishcubiculumis an unadapted borrowing fromLatincubiculum,whileEnglishcubicleis a standard borrowing from the same Latin word. Unadapted borrowings are often learned ones; seelearned borrowing.

uncommon

A term or sense that is attested but not used commonly either in spoken or written language, but more commonly thanrareterms. In comparison to a rare term, an uncommon term may be easy to find in a deliberate search, but is very unlikely to be encountered naturally. Uncommonslangorjargonis unlikely to be used even by members of the relevant subcommunity or specialists in the relevant field.

uncomparable

Seeincomparable.

uncountable,uncountable noun,mass noun

A noun that cannot be used freely with numbers or theindefinite article,and which therefore usually takes nopluralform. For example, the English nouninformationis a mass noun, and at least in its principal senses is uncountable in most varieties of English. For those senses, we cannot say that we have *one information,nor that we have *many information(or *many informations). Many mass noun senses often have corresponding pluralcountsenses that denotetypesof the mass sense,instancesof the mass sense, orportions (servings)of the mass sense. For example, the main sense ofbutteris the uncountable sense, so the plural formbuttersis seldom used, although it occasionally is used to mean "types of butter" (manyherb butterscontain garlic) or "[packets of] butter". Compare also other implicit references to a container and the portion/serving that it contains (get me a water, order two sodas, have a few beers). Many languages do not distinguish between countable and uncountable nouns.Antonym:countable,orcount noun.

undeclinable

Seeindeclinable.

univerbation

A single word formed from a fixed expression of several words. For example, the single wordalbeitcomes from the Middle English expressional be it,in whichalmeansalthough.

usage notes

Additional information on current and historic use of the term in written or spoken language.

V

v

Seeverb.

varia lectio,variant reading,variant

Any one of the readings of a given word or passage in a text which differ from copy to copy, from edition to edition, from manuscript to manuscript, or from translation to translation.

velar

Aconsonantmade with the tongue touching thesoft palate(also known as thevelum). In English these include/k/,/ɡ/,/ŋ/,as in the final consonants ofsack,sag,andsang,respectively.

verb

A word that indicates an action, occurrence or state of being. Theinflectionof verbs is commonly calledconjugation.

verbal noun

Anounformed from averb.

verlan

A type ofbackslangused in French, in which the order of thesyllablesor sounds of words is changed, usually with the lastsyllablecoming first. Examples arebarjotfromjobard(“crazy”)andmeuffromfemme(“woman”).Sometimes this transformation is applied recursively, e.g.beur,a verlan form ofrebeu,which is itself a clipped verlan form ofarabe.

virile

In Slavic languages, a pluralgenderused for groups that include men and formasculinepersonal nouns.

vocative case

Acasewhich indicates that someone or something is being directly addressed (spoken to), often by name. For example, in the English phraseHe's dead, Jimthe nameJimwould be a vocative.

voice

A verb characteristic (expressed in some languages by inflection) indicating its relationship with the subject. The usual voices are:active,passiveandmiddle.

voiced

A sound produced with vibration of thevocal cords;a type ofvoicing.

voiceless

A sound produced without vibration of thevocal cords;a type ofvoicing.

voicing

A characteristic of sounds, indicating whether they are produced with vibration of thevocal cords.In English, allvowelsare voiced, as well as allapproximantconsonants, butplosiveandfricativeconsonants can be either voiced or voiceless. Examples of voiced sounds in English are/v/,/z/,/b/,/d/,and the corresponding voiceless sounds are/f/,/s/,/p/,/t/.Whispering is a type of speech production in which all sounds are pronounced voiceless.

vowel

A sound produced by the vocal cords with relatively little restriction of the oral cavity, forming the prominent sound of asyllable.

vowel harmony

Aphonologicalrestriction in some languages which constrains thevowelsfound either next to each other or within a word, such that vowels must belong to the same class in a particular classification, like front/back vowels or rounded/unrounded vowels.

vulgar

Language considered distasteful, obscene, profane, or otherwise unsuitable for use in polite or formal speech.

See also:offensive,pejorative.

W

Wanderwortorwanderword

A wordform which has spread over a substantial area, or to many regions, outside of that of its language of origin, typically due to cultural exchange resulting from travel and trade. Wanderworts are a type ofloanword,but a Wanderwort may or may not be anarealword. See alsoKulturwort.Contraststrata.

weak declension

A declension of adjectives and nouns in severalGermanic languages,which originally had (and in some languages still have) an-n-in most of their forms. The weak adjective declension is used in conjunction withdefinitearticles.The weak noun declension is simply one of several possible noun declensions, so named because it uses the same endings as weak adjectives. See the Wikipedia article on theweak inflectionfor more information.

weak pronoun

A pronoun of one syllable which is dependent on another word and cannot be used on its own; sometimes calledclitic.Compare withemphaticorstrong.

weak verb

InGermaniclanguages, a verb that forms the past tense using a suffix containing adentalconsonant (d,t,ðor similar). Verbs of this type are considered "regular" in most Germanic languages, but there are also irregular weak verbs, such as Englishthink,thoughtandhave,had.Contraststrong verb,preterite-present verb.

women'sspeech

In certain languages (for example,Karajá language), men and women use or historically used distinct words and inflected forms.

X

X-SAMPA

Extended SAMPA,a system for representing the fullInternational Phonetic Alphabet(IPA) in plain text (ASCII). For a template that converts X-SAMPA to IPA, see{{x2i}}.

Z

zero-grade

InProto-Indo-Europeanlinguistics,anablautform of a root characterized by the absence of the basic ablautingvowelphonemes*/e/ and */o/. For example,*bʰr̥-is thezero-gradeof the Indo-European root*bʰer-meaning ‘to carry, bear’.